IMI
Rebranding a global leader
Our rebrand for FTSE 100 engineering group IMI involved creating a new positioning, enhanced brand architecture and a new visual identity, as well as refreshing its values and brand story.
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As a global leader, IMI has over 10,000 employees spread across 50 countries. While years of successful growth had driven IMI’s expansion, it had also created a complex and overcomplicated brand architecture that limited cross-selling across its portfolio.
At the same time, IMI’s positioning, company story and brand no longer reflected its strengths and future ambitions.
IMI’s brand architecture (made up of 30 diverse sub-brands) and company story needed a transformation that would simplify its structure, empower its sales force, and ignite a fresh cultural and visual identity across the organisation.
We embarked on a collaborative journey with IMI, conducting in-depth research through competitor analysis, interviews, surveys and workshops spanning the entire IMI operation.
Together, we developed the ‘one IMI’ approach to unite the company culturally and unlock the potential of portfolio selling. We carefully planned a strategy to transfer pre-existing brand equity from the sub-brands to the newly unified IMI, ensuring a smooth transition for customers, with full buy-in from colleagues.
Beyond structural changes, we revitalised IMI’s core philosophy. Its customer-centric, problem-solving approach became the cornerstone of its brand story. This ethos was reflected in IMI’s new positioning as an expert partner which collaborates closely with clients to tackle any engineering challenge.
We crafted a new visual identity for IMI’s new vision. The ‘Better World’ logo embodies the dovetailing of client needs and IMI solutions to build a better world. A flexible visual system seamlessly adapts across the company’s five sectors, promoting unity while retaining individual strengths.
With a unified brand and a clear, purpose-driven story, IMI is well positioned for its next stage of growth.
The success of the rebrand led to more collaborations between IMI and our Purpose, Brand & Culture team, including producing a behaviour change campaign, a new employee value proposition (EVP) and values activation.
We also used the visual identity to create a new style Annual Report to present the enhanced positioning, business vision and architecture to IMI's investor audience.
