Page 39 - Seniors Today October 2020

keep away from the Union Carbide name
which got bad PR globally because of the
Bhopal gas tragedy.

Double Barrel-Brand Name
The other route that most mergers take is to
retain both brand names especially if both
are relatively strong and have a large equity
in the market. So they could go with a name
like Vodafone-Idea. Lyondell Basell followed
this approach. Lyondell was a US-based New Brand Name to Signal a New
company with strength in petrochemicals Market Position
whereas the European based Basell was Typically a new brand name is considered
strong in polyolefins. Each company, by merged entities because there is a new
therefore, catered to different markets much market position that makes itself available
like Vodafone and Idea where Idea was to the merged entity. This happened with
stronger in the small towns and Vodafone the merger of Ciba Geigy and Sandoz
was stronger in cities. which merged to form a new brand called
Novartis. Some chemical businesses of Ciba
Geigy were sold after the merger to the new
pharma giant.

After the merger, Novartis became the
second largest pharmaceutical company
Similarly, when Vivendi’s Universal after GlaxoWellcome in 1996.
Entertainment merged with GE’s NBC, the So the final name of Vi is not a surprise.
new entity was called NBC Universal. This is the way most companies go after
When Mittal Steel bought over Arcelor, they a merger. A new name. Their slug line “
decided to name the company ArcelorMittal Together for tomorrow” is very promising
because Arcelor was a better known global and I am sure the brand will see some more
brand with strong European equity. The exciting campaigns in the future.
only constraint that companies face in a
double barrel brand name is that the two
brand names are different typefaces and the
new brand name must have a single unified
typeface. each brand name might have its
own symbol as in the case of Vodafone and
Idea. So if the double barrel brand name
requires a symbol that needs to be looked at
strategically.

38 SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #16 | OCTOBER 2020 39