Marketing Case Study: Accenture

Byron Hernandez Marketing September 5, 2012, 2012 Module 5 – Activity 5. 6 CASE STUDY: Accenture 1. How did Accenture transfer the brand equity from its original name, Andersen Consulting, to the new company name? The way that Accenture transferred brand equity from its original name to the new company name was by specially branding the new one, and looking at a new name as a fresh start, re-introducing itself to its customers, and the world.

With a new name, this allows them to start fresh without the backdrop of a history, and especially since the name was created by one of its employee’s, they took a big risk in going with a ‘made-up’ name, which after extensive research and implementing important decisions, seems to have paid off very well for the company, both literally and figuratively. What they did was effectively transfer their new idea to customers, all the same time implanting their marketing strategy.

An example of this was while advertising in the newspaper, and an anticipated ‘new’ beginning at the start of the following year with a clipping on the bottom corner of their pages. Accenture used advertisement wisely as well as carefully identified the four characteristics that have an affect the marketing service. The divorce from Anderson ended up being a good thing for Accenture. 2. Evaluate the Accenture brand name using the six criteria detailed in the chapter.

There are six different criteria that are detailed in this chapter that can be used to evaluate the Accenture brand. The first one says that it should suggest something about the product’s benefits and qualities. For this particular example, Accenture is clear on that. The word is a combination of accent and future. They wanted to re-invent themselves, market a new name, while keeping the companies values for what they really were, and what separated themselves from their parent company.

Having an accented future, or perhaps having an accent and a future easily distinguished this firm from its parent company and not only was a new innovator born, but not much was lost in the transferring and separation. The second one is that it should be easy to pronounce, recognize, and remember. It could be debatable on how to pronounce Accenture, depending on your grammatical education, yet it does have a flow, it is recognizable, and can be remembered. It has a futuristic feel to it, and incredibly is a made up word.

Third, the brand name should be distinctive. Clearly, Accenture wins a gold medal for this one. You can’t get more creative than coming up with your very own name for a company, and making up a word that puts a label on a $15 billion dollar company, isn’t the easiest task to do. The fourth criteria; says that the name should be extendable. For Accenture it could have a million possibilities, unless you knew the history of the company, or how they were formed, you could potentially guess that Accenture was a car company.

Fifth, the name should translate easily into foreign languages. I’m not so sure about this one, given that Accenture is combination of two words in the English language, but it could have a French origin feel to it. The last criteria, mentioned in this chapter say that the name should be capable of registration and legal protection. Clearly with a word that is made up, I think the legal infringes become significantly low and can easily be registered. 3. How did Accenture use the requirement to rename the company as an opportunity to reposition itself?

Accenture used these requirements to rename the company and as an opportunity to reposition itself by giving new definition to the company. With a new name, and a made up name, it allowed for the company to start with a name that didn’t have any history which allows them to put themselves in the market with new explanations of who they are, and what exactly they do. This ‘divorce’ from the parent company, essentially not only opened new market opportunities with their customer base, but allowed room for new customers as it being a company they had never heard of.