It’s not enough to make a good deal financially and legally; it also requires an understanding of what makes the market like, trust, and remain loyal to your brand, as this may have a critical impact on the businesses’ long-term viability.
Stef Verbeeck is partner and brand strategist at Pavlov, a niche consultant specialized in brand strategy, customer experience and brand identity based in Antwerp, Belgium. He has over 20 years of experience as a consultant in the field of branding and worked for hundreds of brands, ranging from start-ups to multinationals and governments.
On the M&A Forum on February 26 at BDO he will discuss his sometimes controversial insights regarding branding and what they mean for M&A.
One of the common misconceptions in the M&A industry is that branding and marketing are the same thing. However, speaking from over 25 years’ experience, Stef says they are completely different, and not even always related, either.
“A brand is any touchpoint an organisation has with its internal or external stakeholders, even the company’s culture or customer experience. It’s the purpose and vision of the organisation”, he explains. “If you don’t know what you stand for, you don’t know what your added value is, and you won’t have a compelling narrative for your product or company.”
Marketing, on the other hand, makes the brand come to life and communicates it to your target markets. “Your brand strategy won’t reach the world if you can’t translate it into marketing tools”, Stef adds.
While Pavlov – a Belgian branding consultancy with strong expertise in working with investors, private equity, venture capital, and management teams – has observed a high maturity in many markets when it comes to marketing strategy, they’ve also seen a very low maturity in terms of brand strategy. Instead it gets bundled along with marketing.
“When it comes to M&A, the process is more rational. Whereas with branding, you have to think more long-term and emotionally.”
“When it comes to mergers and acquisitions, for example, the process is more rational; you’re crunching the numbers, looking at growth projections, and deep in quantifiable due diligence. Whereas with branding, you have to think more long-term and emotionally”, Stef shares. "The fact that a brand is a less tangible asset than a factory or the solvency of a company makes it more difficult to assess.”
A big reason why branding gets overlooked in this space is because it isn’t traditionally part of M&A professionals’ educational background or day-to-day responsibilities. “They need to be supported with either internal brand and marketing teams or external consultants, like Pavlov. It’s our job to teach clients both on the buyer and seller side that it’s not enough to make a good deal financially and legally; it also requires an understanding of what makes the market like, trust, and remain loyal to your brand, as this may have a critical impact on the businesses’ long-term viability.”
If you don’t pay close enough attention, you could end up like Gap after their 2010 logo blunder, Nokia after it failed to match the mobile user experience of competitors like iOS and Android, or Kodak after digital cameras became mainstream and they couldn’t adapt. “We’ve been involved in multi-million or -billion euro mergers, acquisitions, and even carve outs where I sometimes wonder if they would have closed the deal if they had known beforehand what they knew afterwards”, Stef ponders.
Don’t skip the “soft stuff” of a deal
Two of the biggest mistakes businesses make when it comes to mergers and acquisitions is not caring about the brand they’re buying, and not communicating early or clearly enough. “It all comes back to the emotions of your market, employees, clients, suppliers, competitors, etc. You have to think about the impact it will have on customers, clients, and culture”, Stef emphasises. “To assume that it will just work out according to the business case is naive, as we are dealing with people’s livelihoods and the viability and profitability of entire businesses.”
He uses an example from a carve out in the medical industry, where employees opened their inboxes one Monday to find an email from their CEO with a two-minute message explaining their department had been sold off and would be changing entirely; new name, new logo, new culture. “There was total panic. People didn’t understand what was happening, because they hadn’t been involved in any part of the process.”
Stef mentions that much of this could have been managed from the onset if there had been an official communication plan in place. “We continuously remind our clients to repeat their communications over, and over, and over, again. Communicate in advance, involve people in the parts that will impact them, and genuinely understand their culture – the more transparent you are, the better.”
But in reality, all of this usually only happens once the ink on the contract has dried and the deal is viable, and in many cases, when it didn’t work out the way they wanted it to. For example, when a big business buys a smaller company, tries to impose its brand on the company (forcing it to change its name, logo, identity, and culture). As a result, people don’t recognise their beloved brands anymore or the customer experience changes, and they start pulling away. Branding teams (or worse: an advertising agency) are brought in to manage the subsequent fallout and salvage what can be salvaged.
However, sometimes the brand’s exclusion from the deal process is deliberate, Stef interjects. “If we say to a potential target that their name won’t be on the wall or packaging anymore because we’re taking over everything and changing it to our brand, it might cause the seller to have doubts – especially in family owned businesses named after their founder.”
Culture’s role in merger change management
The role brands play in aligning culture, leadership, and strategy before a sale cannot be underestimated. “You’re asking people to jump on a moving train… and they don’t know where it’s going, except for a vague idea or sense of vision from someone in leadership…” Stef breaks down the problem. “But this kind of trust only exists in companies where the culture allows it.”
He explains that both external and internal stakeholders want to have a sense of belonging, and when that is lost (especially in an M&A transaction), people will find other things to do with their life. “Key players within companies move on because they don’t believe in the new direction of the business or don’t fit in with the newly imposed culture.”
In other deals, little pockets of people emerge that paint the buying party as the bad guys. This disconnect filters into the operations and can ultimately impact the balance sheet.
“If your own people don't believe the deal is beneficial to them as well, they won't actively engage as ambassadors for a future you might have envisioned as an organisation”, Stef says.
The brand numbers that impact budgets
Stef encourages M&A professionals to think outside the conventional deal-making boxes to unlock even more value for their clients. “Consider things like website visitors, brand awareness, customer lifecycle value or net promoter scores (NPS), for example, and what that means for the valuation of a brand.”
“Consider things like website visitors, brand awareness, customer lifecycle value or net promoter scores and what that means for the valuation of a brand.”
He adds that buyers should be interested in these numbers because they will want to know how much time, effort, and budget they will need to invest to make sure the brand has a strong market presence, differentiates itself from competitors, or has loyal customers and ambassadors.
“Many businesses in the Benelux area are family-owned and have been growing their brands for generations, building trusting relationships with their markets and surrounding communities. That trust should be conveyed when you’re selling the company, especially if it’s named after the family”, he explains.
The same applies for venture capital (VC) deals, because they are more aspirational. “If you're investing in start-ups and scale-ups, for instance, all the necessary information about a brand might not be available yet. So you're more in the dark when it comes to leveraging that data”, Stef says.
Branding as a turnaround strategy
For private equity firms (PEs) with reconversion funds, branding is especially fundamental to the deal strategy. “It’s vital to understand why a company failed before you can turn it around, and assess the role of the brand”, Stef points out, adding that any bad reputation can be saved if approached correctly.
Despite suffering a massive blow to its brand, Nokia still exists today after shifting their brand strategy away from mobile phones to satellites, antennas, and other hardware for IT or telecom providers.
“Sometimes, rebranding can be a powerful way to save an organisation’s reputation and optimise its architecture simultaneously”, Stef says. Another option is to put a new umbrella brand over the existing one to approach the market as a sort-of ‘big brother’. “So there’s various strategies depending on the context, industry, and future aspirations of the brand.”
Stef reiterates that brands are valuable and sometimes business critical assets that can help you on every side of the deal making table and shouldn’t be underestimated. He will be unpacking this very topic at the M&A Trend Forum on 26 February 2026.
Kickstart 2026 at the M&A Forum!
🗓️ Date: February 26th, 2026
📍 Location: BDO, BDO Brussels Airport, Leonardo Da Vincilaan 9, 1930 Zaventem
What challenges and opportunities will 2026 bring us? Join us on February 26, 2026, at BDO for an evening of insights, networking, and forward-thinking discussions at the M&A Trend Forum. Building on our collective insights and ideas we’ll bring together M&A experts, CFOs, and Directors to dive into the key issues shaping the future of mergers and acquisitions. Register here...
