Marketing Due Diligence

Situation
In the bidding process, you need a rapid assessment of the target’s brand and marketing to assess the value-creation opportunity and the likely marketing investment.

What’s needed
Strategic due diligence that digs deep into the key elements of the marketing mix.

What we do
Working to your timeline, we conduct a comprehensive insider’s assessment of the target’s brand, advertising, promotion, merchandising, market positioning, pricing strategy, distribution, product features, and positioning. We evaluate the outward facing communications within the competitive environment and we assess the internal marketing function for its ability to deliver results. Each analysis examines fundamentals and also is adapted for the target’s situation and industry.

Why you need us

• Your portfolio support team doesn’t have the resources, or it’s more efficient to outsource the work to someone who can get it done quickly.
• You don’t want to spend fund money on a big consulting firm with generalist knowledge.
• You don’t have the time to engage and manage a branding agency that doesn’t have strategy and finance markets expertise.

Rebranding

Situation
The acquisition’s brand is outdated or inconsistently expressed and doesn’t support the strategy. The website is clunky or fails to take advantage of modern web technology. Management doesn’t differentiate between sales and marketing, so the brand isn’t being managed strategically. To realize value, your acquisition’s marketing and branding requires a refresh.

What’s needed
A strong refinement of the brand, visual identity, and website, supported by a compelling marketing plan, that solidifies the company for holding and makes it appealing for the next investor.

What we do
You tell us the investment thesis, we align the brand to the strategy, early or late stage in the hold period, to increase IRR and drive top-line growth. Using your investment thesis, we employ design, marketing strategy, and narrative thinking to refresh the portfolio company’s brand. We provide a comprehensive visual identity system and brand road map aligned to strategy. We redesign the website.

Our advantage is we know how to distill your investment strategy into actionable branding to drive top-line growth and facilitate the exit sale.

Why you need us

• Your portfolio support team doesn’t have the resources, or it’s more efficient to outsource to someone who can get it done quickly.
• You don’t want to spend fund money on a big consulting firm with generalist knowledge.
• You can’t invest the time to manage an outside branding agency that doesn’t have strategy and finance markets expertise.

Our competitive advantage 
We’ve done this a lot. We have the knowledge and skill that can only be acquired through years of designing and strategizing for brands. We work autonomously and know how to make the leap from investment thesis to effective branding. You access brand strategy experts directly (no interns, no junior people).

Rebranding Deliverables
A comprehensive visual identity system:

• Refined or redesigned logo
• Comprehensive set of professional standards for the usage including: logo, photography, illustration, typography, color (primary and secondary palettes), grids and formats, copy components (tone, grammar, usage), tagline construct.
• Written system for implementing the identity across media.
• Prototypes of tactical implementation for social media, print collateral, website, etc.
• If a website is needed, you have everything for a web developer, or we can redesign the website for you.

Who we are
A left-brain right-brain pair: An award-winning designer and a Wharton M.B.A. We use design thinking to vet potential acquisitions and revitalize the underperforming brand of a portfolio company. We are a turnkey solution to extract ROI through re-branding.

Robert Gallerani is an award-winning designer, educator, and creative director with 20+ years of experience. He occupies the intersection of design disciplines, from architectural and information graphics to print and interaction. His formal design skills are shaped by work at Tucson and Chicago-based graphic design consultancies and as a corporate creative director, with emphasis on technology-based business-to-business print collateral, packaging, identity, and branded communications.
B.A. English, Virginia Commonwealth University
B.F.A. Visual Communication, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Contact Robert

Holly Gardner is a marketing executive and strategy leader from a Bain consulting background with 25+ years of experience in branding and product management. Using marketing research and strategic analysis, she incorporates tenets of behavioral economics and philosophy in the development of brands that achieve above-average returns. She has worked in Europe, South America, and the U.S. conducting acquisition due diligence and managing consumer brands. She has rebranded financial services products, led a marketing department, and directed advertising and media agency campaigns. She works from the Boston area.
B.A. Economics, University of Virginia
M.A. English, Middlebury College
M.B.A. Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

Contact Holly

Case Studies