The world’s largest life sciences company turned to us to create a global brand that would truly capture the spirit of the combined organization. Working across Europe, we distilled the essence of the brand and created a unique identity to unite the organization.

Situation

With the merger of Hoechst and Rhône-Poulenc, two of Europe’s leading pharmaceutical companies, the world's largest life sciences company was born. The brand challenge when two world leaders merge is capturing the spirit of the combined organization and creating a brand that fits the vision behind the merger.

Solution

After recommending the abstract name Aventis, we created a symbol to represent the integration of life and science, the spirit of well-being and vitality and the promise of growth and achievement. The new logo was used on all global businesses.

“With today’s global competition, building a positive, well-recognized image is a critical step in becoming a business leader,” said Peter Wiegand, Aventis Head of Image and Advertising. “We feel this unique logo will become the standard that unites our global business.”

We worked with Hoechst and Rhône-Poulenc for over a year to prepare materials for the Aventis launch. In addition to creating the identity, we designed communication materials, created guidelines for logo use and developed a nomenclature system to ensure consistent use of the identity for the company’s global business units. We also conducted training sessions with Aventis communicators to prepare the business units for global implementation.