Nulandis

UPPE Marketing, the South African leader of agricultural advertising and marketing, approached us to assist them with an interesting brand merger challenge.

Plaaskem, one of the largest distributors of agrochemicals in Africa was missing a few key areas in their footprint. By acquiring two other key distribution companies UAP and Quemico, Plaaskem secured their position as the largest in Africa.

When one is faced with a brand merger in this category, the biggest challenge is often getting internal buy-in. Some  agents were loyal to their previous companies and had worked for them for years. They were now forced to accept a new owner, a new brand, a new name and a new way of doing business.

The first thing we had to do was to build an argument as to how the new brand could benefit them and make it easier for them to sell products. That involves some training and a little bit of ego massaging.

The next thing to ensure was that the decisions made were right for the brand and not personal preference. That is key, and presents a huge problem when twenty people all want a different colour for example.

When developing a new company name… there are certain criteria that always need to be met. In this case, It had to be easy to pronounce, easy to remember, had to work in both languages (English and Afrikaans), and had to work within the Agriculture category. Coupled with that… the .com had to be available, which is often the hardest thing. “Nulandis” ticked all those boxes.

What we enjoyed about the final result is that it can represent a few relevant things without being too literal. Pollination, distribution of products or agents going out into the field, the coming together of companies… its open to interpretation, and is easy to remember. Its also got a lot of potential for creative concepts, like the idea of the Post-its (see below).

We got unanimous buy-in from everyone, and the rest of the communication roll-out was handled by UPPE Marketing. We had no involvement in the design or development of the existing Nulandis website, or any other creative work beyond the identity.