We are all familiar with Coca-Cola, Nike, Heinz, Shell and many other strong global brands. But what is a brand? Someone once described brands as a form of shorthand which buyers make use of when trying to cope with choosing from among a vast and growing number of products that the market offers them. This does not mean that a brand is the same as a huge logotype, a bold trademark or a big advertising campaign. These elements form part of the brand but they are not the full story. Rather, the brand encompasses all the emotions, associations, perceptions and expectations that a logotype, trademark or campaign evokes.
A company’s brand, whether it likes it or not, is what consumers individually and collectively perceive it to be. It is everything that a buyer knows, feels and says about that company – true or false, good or bad. Ultimately, the brand resides in the mind of the buyer, not in the company or its products. That is why brands, like products, have to be engineered, developed and nurtured. Brand building can be regarded as the development of the intangible part of the product. Helping to build a brand is part of every employee’s job, whether they are in research, management, sales or manufacturing, because all aspects of what a company does, and how it does it, influence its reputation, the market’s perception of the company, and ultimately the brand itself.
Rexam came together as a group of companies in 1995. The various companies under the Rexam banner manufactured a range of products from diesel engines to windows and packaging to make-up cases. This breadth was typical of many large companies in the late 1980s in an era when businesses thought that there were benefits to be gained from diversification.
Following Rexam’s creation as a single organisation, it went through a period of profound change. After a strategic rethink in 1996, it embarked on a period of divestment and acquisition to focus the group on the area of consumer packaging. Its strategy was to concentrate on a limited number of packaging segments and become leader in these segments. Rexam also placed emphasis on buying into value added packaging businesses rather than focusing on commodity/bulk products. Today, its emphasis is on a range of best lines (products) and on driving up competitive advantage in these lines. Rexam has six manufacturing sectors operating in four market segments:
- beauty packaging eg pump mechanisms, and lipstick cases for cosmetic companies
- healthcare packaging eg sterile wrapping for medical goods
- beverage packaging eg beverage cans, glass and plastic containers for the beer and soft drinks industry
- food packaging eg plastic containers for spreads, ice-creams and yoghurts; glass jars.
Global packaging market
Rexam is particularly well placed in the global packaging market because of its unique product range. There are clear synergy benefits from operating in these major market segments. Marketing to a number of key customers who will want to purchase all of these types of packaging is a typical example of this synergy.
The majority of Rexam’s product sales are made to a relatively small number of global clients. Just under 50% of all sales are accounted for by approximately 10 major customers, including: Allegiance, Avon, Carlsberg, Chanel, Coca-Cola, Heineken, L’Oreal, Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Red Bull and Unilever. Rexam aims to provide an added value service to its customers, serving them as they develop and innovate. Rexam’s customers are becoming bigger and more global. So too is Rexam. As a supplier, Rexam must support its customers in their new markets. It is easier for customers to build on an existing relationship with a tried and trusted supplier than to start afresh each time.
company. This was becoming increasingly important in a world where Rexam’s customers were revising their supply strategies to concentrate on a reduced number of global suppliers. In many instances, various Rexam companies were supplying to large global customers under different names. By rallying under a single banner, Rexam demonstrated focus and an appearance of scale to existing and potential customers.
Importantly, the single brand strategy also provided a common focal point for the various companies that had been brought together to build the new Rexam group, and it was more cost effective to maintain a single brand rather than a multiplicity of names.
Rexam has worked to transform its organisation from within. Strong brands are built on strong graphic identities, so the starting point for a single brand strategy was to create and implement a common Rexam identity in what was a disparate group of companies across the world. The common corporate identity is a visual backbone for the single brand strategy. The common identity would not only make the Rexam organisation look like one company but would also provide the impetus for it to start to act like one.
The single brand identity affected all parts of the Rexam business. It wasn’t just a question of changing signs on buildings. It involved internal communications, advertising, administrative forms such as invoices, stationery, business cards etc, domain names, external communications and more. The change was carried through in a carefully conceived and managed process where the emphasis was on close involvement of groups of people within each manufacturing sector, and speed of action.
The process was facilitated by head office in London but implemented at local level. Graphic guidelines were produced and a new web-site was constructed to answer questions from employees.
One global company
Representatives of the various Rexam sectors were given the task of ensuring that the process ran smoothly on the ground. Rexam provided these ‘communication champions’ with the means to ensure that everyone understood the single brand strategy and the benefits it would bring to the company. These means included presentations, videos, internal newsletters, special communication days and a clear explanation of the application of the graphic identity.
The emphasis was on getting people to want to be part of one global company, and a brand, called Rexam. The single brand strategy was given added impetus by the acquisition of European beverage packaging manufacturer PLM in 1999. The process of changing the PLM name to Rexam served as a catalyst and as a template for all Rexam businesses.
Rexam’s name change programme has served as a model approach for future acquisitions and was deployed again in 2000 when Rexam acquired American National Can and became the world’s Number 1 beverage can maker. Managing the name change to Rexam involves creating a clear timetable for introducing the change. The physical name change at each operating plant takes place over a weekend, covering everything from products, business cards and company logos to notice boards and letterheads. The name change programme operates so that every employee understands exactly what, when and how the name change to Rexam will take place. Thus, whenever a name change is implemented in a plant, be it in the USA, Denmark, China or the Czech Republic, everyone is able to understand the process and can feel part of it. Rexam’s experience is that, by ensuring that everyone knows why and when the name change is happening, a feeling of inclusion is created and the response is overwhelmingly positive.
from within, using the best aspects of existing organisational cultures. This will then create a new integrated culture based on the Rexam brand. A global audit has been carried out to ascertain how Rexam employees feel about their workplace, and what types of behaviour and relationships they would like to see at work. From this, a detailed cultural programme will be developed, coordinated by a project manager and endorsed by the senior management team.
Training, videos, magazines, road shows and presentations will communicate this worldwide to help Rexam employees to understand what being part of the Rexam family is about. The company is convinced that the establishment of one, clear, unifying culture will support it in becoming the world’s No 1 consumer packaging organisation.
competitive advantage. In its view, successful brands provide a strong platform from which to launch products, and help to attract and keep customers and employees.