Question

REBRANDING OF ABM

Bringing brand clarity and relevance to a 100-year-old company—for the next 100 years.

ABM Industries is a FORTUNE 500 company that had evolved over the course of a century from a small window-cleaning business into a world leader in manpower provisioning. While best known for its core business in janitorial services, a series of acquisitions added capabilities in parking management, security and building systems engineering, making ABM a global player in the building maintenance category.

The 2010 acquisition of the Linc Group marked a dramatic inflection point in ABM’s history. This addition enabled the company to enter the lucrative Integrated Facility Solutions market, and provided new technologies that could be used to better deploy its workforce. The result: An opportunity to dramatically expand its footprint, enter new markets and deliver more sustainable solutions globally.

Leveraging the Linc acquisition as a rationale for re-branding the corporation, ABM leadership and BrandingBusiness set a goal of sending a new message to the marketplace, signifying a new day at ABM. Our research revealed that, despite its impressive size and scope—at the time, $5B in revenue and over 100,000 employees—ABM was pigeonholed as a janitorial company and a custodial brand. The marketplace had limited awareness of, and insight into, the company.

“We're the biggest company nobody's ever heard of.”

Further, ABM’s acquisition history left it with a complicated brand—a kaleidoscope of regional, sub-specialty brands without a strong, unifying framework.

BrandingBusiness simplified ABM’s brand architecture under a “Branded House” format, setting the corporate master brand over its major lines of business and rolling up its many sub-brands.

We developed a new brand position centered on Integrated Facility Solutions that articulated ABM’s unique value proposition: A global workforce, enabled by technology, deep vertical expertise and unrivalled breadth of services—all delivered in an ecologically responsible manner and vertically integrated across a single platform.

A new logo was designed to honor the company’s workforce, and BrandingBusiness added a new tag line: Building Value. The new line conveyed its clients’ primary physical assets—their buildings—along with ABM’s singular role in increasing those assets’ worth.

To signal the emergence of this new ABM, we created an entirely new visual expression system and formal identity guidelines.

We also developed a wide spectrum of applications, including fleet graphics, tradeshow elements, brand video, collateral, posters and the ABM Annual Report.

With the launch of the new ABM, its more than 100,000 employees now had a shared identity and vision, a deep sense of pride—and a brand that could fuel the company for the next hundred years.

"The rebranding of ABM has been the catalyst and unifying force behind a phenomenal transformation at our 104 year-old company. We grew significantly through acquisition and our new, focused brand has been a unifying rally point for thousands of employees. Because of our partnership with BrandingBusiness, we have seen incredible energy, enthusiasm, and team spirit across the enterprise."

Brett Knox - Chief Marketing Officer, ABM

Questions

What is your reaction to this case study?

State whether or not there were breaches in the procedures.

Answer 1

Ans:

a) This case study basically describes the expansion of ABM company. How the company has expanded its business from only window cleaning service providers to the multi-functional service provider. in this case study, ABM has added so many new features to its company's profile. Till date, there was no such requirement to go for rebranding as the service provided by the company and its features are closely associated. After acquiring Linc company' the service dimension of ABM been changed. it is now presented in a complete change structure that adds positive and multidimensional service provided by ABM. So in this situation, it is better to rebrand ABM products to bring out its excellent service. New logo, more information and high satisfaction will add to the ABM's profile after rebranding. As 100 years is not a small-time span, in this time period many things have been changed and enhanced with more accuracy. the product features as well as product range also increased. so to show all its verity it is always suggestible to rebrand the product in an innovative way.

b) In the rebranding process, there is always possible to overlook some of the features and specification of the company due to the broader area of operation. There will change in the corporate image of the organization. this rebranding will open the demographic area of operation. sometimes it may possible that the company will move away from its core objective. this rebranding may affect the old reputation and name as there will be more dimension in a new brand and there is no such assurance that this one also succeeds like the old one.it will add more no. of the customer with more complexity. the company have to satisfy its customer with reference to the old reputation. rebranding may have the risk of losing the old customer so the company have to take the decision very carefully. so when it comes to breach there will be to some extent and the company have to be very careful to to deal with this matter.