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AECOM isn't very well known in the UK yet, but it is a huge and growing construction conglomerate offering services in every aspect of the planning, design, construction and maintenance of the built environment.

AECOM has grown in some territories by acquisition, and many of the companies that they had bought had their own brands and reputations and their own long-standing relationships with customers.

One of the big issues in branding is what to do with acquired companies. It's tempting for some companies to want to brand everything the same as the parent company. It makes brand management cheaper overall, and it's a good way to communicate breadth and depth of offer to potential customers. Everyone at least looks like their on the same team. That last point is also the problem, of course, if the acquired company has a track record of working independently and of giving entire impartial advice. Customers might begin to wonder if they will be subject to unwelcome attempts at cross-selling. There are mid-point options too: one brand can endorse another to a greater or lesser extent.

One of the methods that can contribute to deciding on the right thing to do is to speak with the companies concerned and their customers. I had the chance to speak with a company that I had never heard of: Economics Research Associates. As a brand name, the company hardly sounds exciting or inspiring. But as a company nothing could be further from the truth: they do fascinating work, the people are delightful, professional and interesting, and their customers adore them. If, say, you were going to open a theme park or a hotel resort or a shopping mall, ERA would be the company who could work out for you what the retail mix should be, what the capacity of the attractions should be (so it feels just busy enough), and what mix of accommodation should be provided. It's one of those things that I have never really considered before, but of course these are incredibly hard questions, and ones for which a wrong answer can be terribly expensive.

Given the strength of feeling around ERA's expertise, and their need to remain able to work impartially and independently, it didn't make sense to ride roughshod over their brand. However, there were plenty of projects within AECOM that could benefit from what ERA had to offer, and not being up-front about the AECOM relationship right from the start would go against both company's honest approach to communications.

Some kind of mixed/hybrid solution was required, with the potential for this to evolve further as the business developed, and that is exactly what happened, as you can see from the screen grab of their website below.

Brand positioning and brand architecture

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