Weaving a Brand Tapestry From Five Companies Into One
When undertaking a massive project of any kind, sometimes you only know where you should have started once you’ve gained understanding and it’s too late to go back and do it again.
Chris Betton (UK and EMEA Marketing Manager, HIPER Global UK) knows all about this from his work on pulling together 5 businesses from 3 countries, under 1 new global banner – Chris joined Richard on the podcast to share his successes and lessons learned on:
- The challenges of creating content that resonates with multiple audiences whilst still staying true to HIPER Global UK’s value proposition
- The importance of authenticity and effective communication
- The need for agility and innovation in marketing strategy – particularly in the tech marketing space
“If an idea comes from somewhere unexpected, embrace it, because all it takes is for something different to crop up, and you might have something completely new to try in the market that suddenly starts to resonate. How are you going to know that until you try it?” – Chris Betton
Transcript
VO:
Hi and welcome to the Insiders by durhamlane, where we get perspectives from industry thought leaders about strategies that are unifying marketing and sales cycles to help accelerate growth inside your world.
Richard:
Welcome to Insiders by durhamlane, an industry podcast that connects the worlds of marketing and sales one guest at a time. I’m your host Richard Lane, I’m co-founder and chief commercial officer at durhamlane and we’re a revenue acceleration agency.
We help enterprise customers create always-on channels of meaningful and well-qualified sales opportunities. Today I’m thrilled to be joined by Chris Betton. Chris is the marketing manager for the UK and EMEA arm of HIPER Global UK, an industry leader in application specific and industrial computing solutions.
They accelerate their customers route to market through advanced engineering, manufacturing and logistical support. Chris, really great to have you on the show, thanks so much for being with us.
Chris:
Thank you for having me, it’s great to be here.
Richard:
So Chris, we tend to get our podcast kicked off with just a quick intro from our guests, so would you perhaps be kind enough to share a little bit of your story with our listeners and tell us how you’ve got to here?
Chris:
Yeah, where do I begin? I guess my working career started in air traffic control in the Royal Navy, but I guess my marketing career started at what was then called Yellow Pages and I worked in their website division. A few years later and a few hundred website customers after that and I found my way to HIPER Global, where I’ve been their UK and EMEA marketing manager now for almost eight and a half years. Yeah, it’s been a pretty unconventional journey getting here, but yeah, it’s been an extremely rewarding five or ten years working here at HIPER Global and sitting on the edge of where we’re going to in the future.It’s an exciting time.
Richard:
Excellent, well thanks for that and for any of the older listeners of the Insiders from a sales point of view, when you mentioned Yellow Pages, that will have them flashing back to the good old days of real prospecting and real cold calling.
Chris:
Yeah, I was fortunate to work in the websites division, but yeah, there was many adverts, chats, if any of your listeners remember the old advert of the young lad stepping on Yellow Pages at Christmas.
It’s something not many people will probably recognise these days, but yeah, that’s looking back on much, much, much longer times ago. Yeah, absolutely. The world has changed rapidly since those days.
Richard:
In our pre-interview you mentioned that it’s been an interesting time with HIPER Global particularly since you rebranded a few years ago. It’d be interesting to know what was the driving force behind the rebrand as far as you’re able to tell us and how has that affected the business for positive or for worse?
Chris:
Yeah, it’s been an interesting few years. We rebranded back in 2022 and it’s been an incredibly challenging, but also phenomenally rewarding time to take five distinct and culturally rich businesses from around the world and unite them under one banner.
It’s been incredibly positive and it’s helped to spur a lot of change both in how we market, the tools we use, how we talk about ourselves, what we say when we do talk about ourselves, but also internally as we look to stretch our reach across the globe. It really has led to almost going back to the start of a branding journey. It’s definitely led to conversations that have helped secure a much firmer foundation, one that we’re still working on and learning and building.
But the way I see it is how can we offer value to our customers if we don’t know how to identify our own? And that is what is funnelling and fuelling our efforts moving forward. In terms of the bigger scope, going from what was a local UK-focused organisation based here in Reading and suddenly becoming part of a bigger family with organisations and teams and co-workers in countries around the world. It’s just completely transformed how we work in a very positive way.
It has taken time to iron out all the creases and get through all of the teething problems that come with this sort of transformation. But standing here today, looking ahead to what is going to be a fantastic 2024 for HIPER Global, the journey is only just beginning. And I’m incredibly fortunate to be stood here helping to navigate that moving forward.
Richard:
That’s amazing. Just to maybe dig into that a little bit more, Chris, if I may. You’ve brought five distinct businesses under one banner.
Did that happen all at the same time? Or did you take one and then another and then another and bring them into the fold? Or was it literally there are five different companies and we’re going to smash these all together under one?
Chris:
Yes. We were part of a parent group going into 2022. And it was decided that when you truly break down the value offering of the five companies that have become HIPER Global, we really do offer more specialist type of service within the industrial hardware space.
We’re talking developments in AI, high performance computing, rack scale infrastructure. The services around those five companies were just a little bit different to the rest of our group. And there was a huge amount of value for us to put us under a HIPER Global banner because we are seeing in our past research and our developments over time that the nature of technology and the nature of OEM projects lends itself to a global perspective.
A prime example would be taking a product to market. There’s not many times where a product will specifically stay in one region at this scale. It’s going to be global because our customers pass on those products to their own customers, their own value ads, their own IP.
So having a global front and a global framework to offer that, it changes how we market and communicate because we’re not talking about one company based in one office and one location to one demographic. We’re talking about many more demographics, many more industries. And the complexity comes from different regions having different segments to target, different positioning, trying to unify that to speak with one voice, one tone of voice, one messaging, one value proposition.
That is where that complexity originates because what we don’t want to do or didn’t want to do rather is completely disregard the rich history of five companies based in three countries. Like that is our story. That is our journey to where we are.
The last thing we want to do is completely disregard that. It’s a rich history that makes us who we are. And I’ve found as this branding journey has kind of developed that that history is one of the most important things that form the part of a brand because recognition is one thing, but trust and transparency are another.
Richard:
Yeah, absolutely. And trust and transparency typically comes through stories.
Chris:
Exactly.
Richard:
Yeah, really, really important point there. Okay. So clearly a huge project, programme of work, very ambitious in terms of bringing all of that together under one and not losing the story.What impact has rebranding all of the business units into one had on customer acquisition, both activities and successes?
Chris:
That’s a story that continues to run day to day. Working here at HIPER Global, there’s no two days that are ever the same, both in the activities we do and the stories we can tell. Different activities in different segments and different positioning changes the value of what we offer.
A prime example, our teams in the US. The US is a vastly different market, even though many might consider it quite similar because it’s English speaking, it’s similar in many ways to the UK. But the typical activities that we would use here in HIPER Global UK might not necessarily resonate with the US audience.
If you completely flip that on its head from our US offices to our teams in Israel, who have a vastly different market, a vastly different landscape for what they offer, the messaging and tools is different. So how do you unify under one banner when prior to the rebrand, we were all using different tools, all saying different things and all pitching it to different markets. That work over the last, say, 18 months has been really about narrowing in on what our value is.
And when you tie that to the OEM space, the industrial hardware space, it really comes down to our collaborative spirit with customers. We all share that spirit. So when it comes to acquisition, telling a new story provides a whole heap of challenges.
It’s basically going back to scratch and starting from zero, which is quite a scary task when you’ve got an organisation and a brand here in the UK that was 15 years old.
Richard:
Well, I was going to ask you about that because from a sales and marketing perspective, that has to be one of the big risks of rebranding is that you lose all of that heritage and all of the, whether it be domain expertise or knowledge or the Google analytics, etc. Then how have you as an organisation dealt with, as you say, starting from zero again? How’s that manifested?
Chris:
In a perfect world, I would say it’s allowed us to have new conversations with our customers and reintroduce ourselves.
Because for many, if I think back to that day when we did the big switchover and we were picking up the phone rather than saying old names, it’s saying a new one. It certainly took a while to shave off all the edges and get it really polished. But really, when it comes down to it, it’s provided new opportunities for us to lean on global opportunities that really do resonate with our customers.
So for example, our work with companies around the world that need specialist and localised services without having to distribute or manufacture themselves, which is incredibly costly. Working with a location that is based near you allows us to extend our services whilst at the same time keeping those relationships current. It would be very easy for us to say it would go through one central location, everybody gets the switchboard, everybody gets the same approach.
But as I mentioned earlier, that doesn’t necessarily work when you factor in such diverse regions.
Richard:
It’s really interesting, Chris. I can see some of the complexity for your prospects and customers, probably less for your prospects, more your customers, and there’s some of that market engagement piece.
I’m interested to know internally, is there a blooper reel on day one of the sales team introducing HIPER Global to the market instead of their other old brands?
Chris:
It took a remarkably short time for us to stop saying old brand names and start focusing on HIPER Global. But that doesn’t mean that that transition has been easy. It completely takes us away from just answering the phones and sending emails with a logo and an email signature.
That’s more than what this transition was. It was about us repositioning ourselves as part of a much bigger entity with much more extensive and specialist capabilities. Internally, that goes all the way from the signage on our front doors and our buildings, all the way through to our graphic assets and our copywriting.
It needed us to take a significant step back to define how we want to talk about ourselves, not out in the market, not in the graphics that we create or the events that we participate in or the videos that we make, but how we internally talk about ourselves. That is a process that has been quite extensive over the last, say, 12 months because we’ve focused on how we’re communicating with our audiences without losing the authentic point I mentioned at the start. Coming from what was a UK-based organisation, all of our team are here in one location, and if something, let’s say, touch wood, went wrong, we can identify the issue straight away and we can tackle it from there.
As you spread out across the world and you have teams in multiple different areas and multiple different countries, the way we work together has just completely changed on a global level. From a marketing level, especially my counterparts in North America and Israel, we have worked endlessly to refine that messaging and really narrow in on what it is that makes us who we are. Five companies, five rich histories, five voices.
We weren’t ever going to throw that away, but it’s formed a part of our story and how we go to the market. HIPER Global is just one voice, but it’s one voice that represents us all. All locations, all business units, all functions, and it has to represent us accurately so that we can empower that message in everything we do.
For our branding listeners and the people that specialise in that approach, the more activities you do without having that messaging, the more blurred the line becomes. One person wants to try something different. Well, as soon as you do that, it’s blurring and dirtying the message a little bit.
Five companies doing the same thing in different ways doesn’t work when you have to speak with one voice.
Richard:
I mean, a hugely complex project sounds like a very successful and obviously still ongoing program of work, but it’s one that you and your colleagues will have put many, many hours into getting right. I guess the sort of obvious question that is going through my mind is if you had to do this again tomorrow, what, if anything, would you do differently? Are there any things you can share there?
Chris:
Yeah, I would almost definitely start with the messaging piece from day one.
The nature of expansion and taking new steps into new areas that we’ve not worked in, new regions, new industries. We specifically wanted to make sure that our value proposition in those industries was as sharp as possible. That’s hard to do when you don’t necessarily have that unified voice I was talking about earlier.
So yeah, if I could go back in time, as I sometimes wish I almost could, it would be to really, really sharpen that message as soon as humanly possible, because that has played such a key role in how we have taken ourselves to market. It is quite a double-edged sword, in all honesty. Having worked with HIPER Global for quite a while, seeing a brand you use day to day transform into something new and exciting and completely revolutionary internally, it really is a kind of sweet spot to see the history and put that into the messaging.
If I could do that back at the start and really, really, really focus in on that culturally and diverse, rich messaging that we’re using now, all the way back then, the process would have been, I would like to think, a little bit smoother. I won’t say significantly smoother.
Richard:
It was a bit of a mean question because it’s often chicken and the egg, isn’t it?
Chris:
Exactly.
Richard:
Sometimes you have to start going through the process to learn where you wish you’d started the process, but you can’t do that without the understanding. So let’s keep along this theme and build on it a little bit, Chris, and maybe link it into some of the work that we do and lots of our listeners probably do, and maybe talk about content briefly, because I’m assuming that as five different brands, you had five different types of voice and content, and your sales and marketing teams probably were relatively comfortable with what they took to market. So that then became one.
It’d be great to understand, I suppose, how that happened, and again, some of the learning points that maybe you’ve taken from it.
Chris:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s kind of a marketing mantra that we all kind of know content is key.
We’ve all learned that in some history or process in getting to where we are today, but you’re absolutely right. When it comes to marketing, and especially tech marketing, the things we learn as marketers doesn’t always necessarily apply with tech marketing. It’s a completely different beast.
Every day is never the same as the one before it. New acronyms, new technologies, new applications, as well as new ways of absorbing content, new segments, new ways of positioning. We all learn how to narrow in on our personas and get content right for those personas, but in an ever-evolving industry like tech, I’ve been here almost 10 years, and there are still things I’m learning, still things that people who have been here 20 years are still learning and still taking steps to really become the leaders in their fields.
For content, we work with a number of audiences that vary from the really technically inspired, so your chief technical officers, your VP of tech, all the way through to your procurement-type people who are looking for more value in solution-driven content. Those are two vastly different audiences, but in between them are a huge wave of people that absorb content in different ways. So taking that case study of Israel 1, which is a fantastic story to tell, and it’s going to do incredible things, which way do you go? Do you focus on the technical specs, the hardcore table-based content that really does hammer in on what a piece of technology is capable of, which one audience is going to love, or do you focus on the value that it can offer in the grander scheme of things? They’re two different ways of communicating the same story, but if you lean one way more than the other, you risk not engaging one audience or engaging one more than the other.
So it has changed how we’re communicating in that way because making, I don’t know, let’s just say, for example, six pieces of content for six different audiences is incredibly time-intensive and resource-heavy, and it doesn’t necessarily produce the best results. So what we’re trying to do with content is focus on the value, focus on what value we add to the conversation, and hopefully that spurs engagement, and if they want the technical specificity, we can provide it. But for all tech marketers out there who might be listening, we all know the realm of data sheets and case studies and specifications.
I’ve certainly made my fair share, but it doesn’t necessarily align with highlighting value, less so than highlighting the technical aspects of something which people can find anywhere.
Richard:
We have a service, Chris, which we call, very non-technically, a fresh lick of paint. So, you know, a lot of our customers are US tech companies, they’re very data sheet based, and we often take their content and then give it a fresh lick of paint for an immediate audience, for example, and that usually involves drawing out the value because, you know, different audiences, as you say, want to see different things.
So I guess it goes back into the personas you’re looking to, the business fit that you’re trying to ascertain with them, the footprint you’re trying to leave, and your content drives from there.
Chris:
Yeah, we’re not saying that content isn’t key, because content is almost definitely the driving force behind our marketing efforts. I guess the point I’m trying to get at is that the way our personas engage content is constantly changing.
It’s easy to say a case study or a data sheet would work better if it was in graphic form. It almost in every case will work better, but that’s only for one audience or for one particular type of persona. When you work in an industry that doesn’t just have two or three job titles or seniorities that people can really, really sharpen their arrows for, it means you have to try and be something for everyone without diluting your value.
That is something we’re continuing to explore with our content, because content’s not going anywhere. We know our audiences really do want to hammer in on what technology can do for them, rather than the specifics, the memory, the hard drive, the operating system, which is technically a data sheet. And there’s only so many ways you can glamour up a data sheet in a content world.
Richard:
Yeah, I love that. Something for everyone about losing the value. There’s a challenge.There’s a challenge if we’re going to sell listeners, if ever there’s been one. That’s really, really good, Chris. I’m going to move us on and just reflecting.
You’re on and you’ve been on a significant journey with HIPER Global in terms of the rebrand. Just thinking of our listeners, when it comes to rebranding, what one thing could you get them to think about and take away in action immediately for the biggest bang?
Chris:
That’s a very good question. I guess for me, the one thing with a rebrand is it’s never too late to try something different.
And I know that might sound like a cliche we can all see on a greetings card, for example, but it’s easy to say we’re going to throw everything out the window and just do X, Y, and Z. When it comes to starting from scratch, you can’t lean on the experience you’ve had with your own brand because it’s so uniquely connected to it. It’s based on going to market as something else. Where do you start when the image you’re portraying to the industry is a completely new one? It takes time to figure out what works and how a brand should sound, how it should read, how people should connect with it.
It’s the language it uses, the way it communicates. Again, it would be easy to go back to square one and completely start from scratch. But I think leaning on that history point, you wouldn’t want to throw away decades of history in the market.
That history can become a really, really useful tool in helping to create a new entity, a new way of going to market. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Richard:
Excellent.Okay. And we’ve had a question in from Fernanda, Chris. We go out prior to any podcast and say, this is what we’re up to, ask a question, tell us what’s on your mind and we’ll put our expert on the spot.So we’ve got a question in from Fernanda. She says, how do you stay adaptable and innovative in your marketing approach to keep up with the constantly evolving technological and digital landscapes? I think you’ve answered that a little bit already, but let’s just reflect on that for a minute.
Chris:
Agility is something I think pretty much most marketers have had to become more adept at as we’ve entered a predominantly digitally run field.
Being able to stay fast on your feet, not be afraid to try new things, test, test and test, try new things. It’s easy to leave things on autopilot. I’ll hold my hand up and say, it is very, very easy to press go and let something grow and let it gather data.
But in that timeframe, it’s easy to forget about it. That for me is something that sits at the core of agility. Yes, gather data, gather insight, use everything you can to get a peek behind the curtain, but ultimately don’t let it go on its own.
Go back to it, try something new, tweak something, use a different phrasing structure, try a different palette, something different, because how do we know what works unless we are the ones that are trying to make it work? One of the things from my experience is HIPER Global’s new color scheme was predominantly black and white. There’s only so many things you can do with black and white. So one of the things we try to work on is to try different colors, try different color palettes.
The tech industry typically leans more to blues and purples, but why not try something different? Because all it takes is for one audience, one person to engage with something new, and you’ve suddenly got an insight into something that might reveal more about a new market, a new activity, a new technology. Never be afraid to try something new. That’s how we learn.
It’s how I’ve learned over eight to ten years. So keep trying new things, be agile, and constantly absorb feedback. Fast on your feet, never stand still.
At HIPER Global, ideas can come from anywhere, and it’s one of the things I love about working here. It could be a nudge from someone about a LinkedIn post that does something a little bit differently, it could be a colleague in our tech team that wants to write content, but on something perhaps a little bit more obscure, or it could even be a look at this data sheet, it says it breaks through the technical barriers. They’re all ideas at the end of the day, you don’t have to take action on them, but it’s about seeing things that somebody else might see, because we can’t see everything, we can’t be online all the time, we can’t be on LinkedIn looking at ideas or feedback.
If an idea comes from somewhere unexpected, embrace it, because all it takes is for something different to crop up, and you might have something completely new to try in the market that suddenly starts to resonate. How are you going to know that until you try it?
Richard:
Yeah, awesome. Excellent.Okay, well, thank you. And perhaps the hardest question of the interview, the conversation to this point, Chris, would be, would you like to add a track to our Insiders Spotify playlist? So, we ask each guest to nominate a song, which we add to what is a rather varied list. So, what have you got in store for us?
Chris:
You know, ever since we had our first conversation and this popped up, it’s been rattling around upstairs.
Do I lean into some EDM or do I stay true to my 80s roots? It’s been on my mind for a while, but I love an anthem. So, for me, it would be 4 Non Blondes’ What’s Up. It’ll be a song that most people go, never heard of it, don’t know it, who is it? But as soon as you press play, and you hear those intro bars, you’ll know exactly the song.
And that for me is an absolute anthem. And it’s probably number one or two on my everyday playlist. Can’t go without.
Richard:
Awesome. Excellent. Well, we’ll get that added for you, Chris. And thank you. And look, thanks very much for taking the time out to talk to us about your quite remarkable rebound journey, actually. I do love the name.So, we haven’t talked about where the name came from, but I love the name. And I love some of the insight you’ve given us into how you’ve pulled all of that rich history together into one new, much bigger story that is a global story now. And lots, I think, for our listeners to take away.
And no matter what size your business, there are always things that you can be doing. And I know some of the comments you’ve made today will be applicable to people running very small companies as it is to people running global companies. So, thank you so much.It’s been brilliant having you with us.
Chris:
No worries. Long time listener, first time guest on the podcast.So, thank you so much for having me. And yeah, I’m very, very happy to have been on the podcast today. Thank you.
Richard:
Awesome. That’s great, Chris. Thank you.
And just to wrap up, I’d like to thank you, our listeners, for tuning into The Insiders. As always, please subscribe on your preferred podcasting site to ensure you’re notified of any and all new episodes as and when they’re published. And if you’d like to learn more about durhamlane and our unique method of selling at a higher level, then please visit durhamlane.com for more information.
And until then, I’ll see you on the next episode.
VO:
The Insiders by durhamlane. Subscribe today to never miss an episode.
Recent Episodes
-
Marketing Magic: Turning Customers into SuperfansJune 2024
What do marketing magic and loyal customers have in common? Find out as Goetz Posner, Global Head of Marketing and Customer Experience at Amadeus, reveals how to weave magic into your marketing strategies.
Listen now -
How the Humble Sprout Can Transform Your StorytellingJune 2024
Jamie Mackenzie (author of 28 Bags of Sprouts – Storytelling with Impact) shares his knowledge on the true power of communication – and how you can harness it to make you stand out in your career.
Listen now -
Weaving a Brand Tapestry From Five Companies Into OneApril 2024
Chris Betton (UK and EMEA Marketing Manager, HIPER Global UK) shares his experience in rebranding 5 businesses into 1 – and what he’d do differently if he could do it again.
Listen now