Refocusing for the private sector; branding of a former parastatal

Leon Deist plays a key part in the success of arivia.kom as his role of head of market development includes defining the market segments, developing a marketing strategy and plan, developing specific customer relationship management processes and marketing capabilities, and importantly, establishing the arivia.kom brand.

"Perhaps the greatest challenge has been building a brand from a zero base for a leading information technology company, which had previously no requirement for a brand of its own," notes Leon Deist, market development executive of arivia.kom.

"Understanding the background of arivia.kom is vital in order to understand just how well we have done in giving it an identity of its own."

Arivia.kom was formed out of the IT departments of three parastatal organisations, two of which, namely Transnet and Eskom, had very strong brands of their own. These two entities, Datavia and Eskom ITS, were internal departments providing resources to their respective companies. The third entity, Ariel Technologies (formerly Denel Informatics), although still owned by Denel, had been operating as an independent entity for some time prior to the merger and had a variety of clients outside of Denel.

Says Deist: "The upfront analysis of the business case indicated that bringing together these three entities as one brand unit would create an enterprise of the scale and capability that would make it a far larger brand than each would have been on its own. Furthermore, the financial gains of one unified organisation would be greater than each operating independently.

"Once the decision to merge was made, it was clear that a name and brand identity was going to be one of the most important change management tools, as it would give staff something to relate to and identify with. There was definitely a limit on how long one could use a generic name such as Newco.

"The decision to announce the merger in January 2001 was made in December 2000. This left us with only one month to come up with a name and image concept that would accurately portray the size, scope and full spectrum of offerings which arivia.kom could offer.

"Given the time constraint, we decided that the most critical elements would be a name, a logo and a tagline. We felt that the rest could take shape as we went along.

"We opened the name search to staff participation and received many suggestions which were eventually whittled down to three acronym-based names, three African and three abstract names. It was ironic that the one which surfaced as the one we felt gave us the most flexibility and differentiated us the most, was the one which the PR agency had used on the change management newsletter - arivia.kom.

"This name takes elements of each of the entities - Ariel, Datavia and Eskom - and we felt that its abstract quality would differentiate the company while still acknowledging the roots from whence we came.

"The name`s home grown flavour was an advantage as well as the fact that of all the names tabled, it was the one which created the most discussion. This, we felt, would work in our favour.

"Having settled on the name, we had only weeks to come up with a brand image. Rather than try to achieve everything in one go, we opted to establish a logo.

"The brief to the advertising agency for the look and feel was quite simple. We were looking for something which would convey the totally integrated business, the breadth of business solutions and the size and scale of the organisation, while at the same time it should have international reach and African roots."

The final logo style depicts the name surrounded by a purple and blue orbit, with the orbit representing the dynamic interaction between the three original entities and also between the arivia.kom people, technology and customers. The orange dot symbolises the technology hub around which the business is built.

"The colours had significance as well, with purple representing leadership, blue representing neutrality and wisdom and the orange representing growth and prosperity."

In terms of marketing strategy, Deist says that the company was aware that they were playing catch up with the other more established IT players in the country, coming off a zero base, with few people outside the main parastatals and government departments knowing even a little about the company.

"The first year, we really focused on getting as many people exposed to the name and our intentions as possible. One thing we found was that the name itself was a good ice-breaker, people were curious as to how we arrived at the name and in explaining the origins of the name, it already said a lot about who we were and the background and experience we have.

"This helped us with our second task which was to position the name strongly. Some level of recognition had already been achieved given that we had emerged from three well-known established state-owned enterprises with strong brands.

"Furthermore, we placed a lot of emphasis on the fact that our people have the experience of working on and supporting some of the largest network installations in the country.

"The third thing we did was to begin positioning our solution sets and the areas in which we operate - most notably by structuring the business into three clearly defined areas, namely IT infrastructure, business solutions and niche market solutions.

"Although in retrospect, it would have been good to have had more time to pre-plan, the rapid pace from day one meant that we had the benefit of showing progress to our staff and clients from the outset.

"In communicating to our stakeholders, we made extensive use of face-to-face situations, with the largest event being the company launch and the resultant media follow up."

In the early days following the launch, the Sunninghill head office site was treated as a pilot site, with the roll-out of signage, letterheads, business cards and related stationery being designed and implemented only at this site. Thereafter, within three months, all of the nine buildings nationally were rebranded and the corporate identity was rolled out.

Says Deist: "The one thing we learnt was to roll-out one or two things really well. We felt that if we rushed and tried to do everything in one go, we would have ended up having to redo something.

"In our type of business, which is defined by services, solutions, intellectual capital and relationships, our brand is our most important tangible asset. As such we did not find advertising to be significantly supportive in establishing our key messages and reputation - we rather use publicity in the media for that. I think advertising is more useful if you have a product to sell. Our most successful efforts have been our events, like the launch, our sponsorship of Computer Faire, hosting our annual golf day, social and sporting sponsorships and other events. The advertising we did do included the launch and selected print media with the focus on reinforcing our brand."

On the question of sharing arivia.kom`s learning experience with other organisations facing a similar task, Deist says that the more important points to remember are:

a. The corporate identity must be part of a clear business strategy and message - you won`t go anywhere with it, if it is not aligned.

b. Seek out and explore every opportunity. He says that the biggest surprise they have had is the benefit they have derived from "cause" marketing, for example the schools rugby development that they sponsor.

c. Aim for a quick but phased roll-out; it sounds like a contradiction but he feels getting something out quickly and rolling it out in phases worked for them and earned them buy-in from stakeholders.

d. Don`t worry if you start running out of time, prioritise and don`t aim for too much too soon, rather do a few things really well.

e. Put aside sufficient budget. He says that they spent a realistic amount on marketing efforts, but in the end spent less than they had anticipated.

f. You can`t build it overnight, because you can`t buy the value that the brand represents, you must build it on good relationships.

Going forward, Deist says arivia.kom will focus its attention on building its brand in Africa.

"We`ve already built good relationships around the arivia.kom brand in SA and we aim to maintain this. Moving forward, we`ve recently established a strong market development team, which will focus specifically on African markets and marketing efforts across the continent."