The merger of French Alcatel and American Lucent Technologies meant that the global leader of advanced communications services would be created. The company would be present in 130 countries with over 79,000 employees. Both companies were facing some negative perception issues in their markets— Europe and the U.S. respectively—and the merger was the perfect synergy, offering the opportunity to develop a bigger, more competitive, and differentiated offer. Landor was appointed to develop the company’s naming strategy and corporate identity based on an existing positioning.
Alcatel-Lucent: To infinity for two communication leaders
Challenge
To properly address the naming challenge, Landor developed a relevant positioning statement. The draft that the company had developed ran the risk of becoming irrelevant and undifferentiated. BrandAsset Valuator (BAV) also reinforced that both companies were lacking differentiation. Positioning, naming, and an identity all had to be delivered in a short time frame and face internal organizational and cultural issues, typical in any merger of this magnitude.
Solution
Landor developed the verbal Brand Driver(TM) Open Minds, Open Doors, which metaphorically conveys the new company’s mission of "enriching people’s lives by transforming the way the world communicates.” The naming strategy recommended using a combination of the existing names – both having sufficiently strong brand equity and recognition to negate the need and cost of creating and supporting a new name. The logo is a stylized version of the infinity symbol with the letters “A” and “L” embedded in it, and represents the endless possibilities of the merged Alcatel-Lucent.
The Alcatel and Lucent Technologies identities before the merger.
Авторизуйтесь, чтобы получить возможность оставлять комментарии
