InfoGroup Rolls Out New Corporate Branding, Continues Reorg Efforts

After a decade-long acquisitions spree that included Direct Media, Millard Group, Edith Roman Associates, Mokrynski Direct and YesMail, InfoGroup is launching an initiative to turn what CEO Bill Fairfield describes as a "loose confederation of 31 business units" that "caused operational inefficiencies and confusion in the marketplace" into a more unified portfolio of data-driven products and services under the InfoGroup brand umbrella.

The Omaha, Neb.-based conglomerate (formerly known as infoUSA until its May 2008 name change to InfoGroup) is focused on two goals with its corporate-wide branding strategy, Fairfield told Target Marketing:

1. Rationalize the business, which calls for continued consolidation and the closing of competitive units. "We're not sure how many units we'll end up with," he notes, just that this process will continue this year.

2. "Get some identity" with marketers looking for better prices, more efficiency across the marketing process and the latest technologies.

In some cases, Fairfield explains, sister units were serving the same customers without being aware of the relationships—and the same went for the client side. And from an internal perspective, "it was not unusual to have five or six of our business units buying the same word on Google, essentially competing and canceling out marketing spend," he adds.

In order to create a more unified public face and streamline operations, InfoGroup will be merging some units and renaming the new entities; for example, Triplex Marketing Services and May Development Group now is InfoGroup/Nonprofit. The plan also calls for adding the corporate moniker (which now has a new logo) to the names of its most successful brands, e.g., YesMail becoming InfoGroup/YesMail.

Moving forward, Fairfield says the company will be focused on organic growth, especially the creation of a dynamic, corporate-wide environment for new product development. "The roots of this company is information and data," he stated, core competencies InfoGroup will continue to leverage to introduce a "stream of new data products and services in the digital space."

The rebranding effort went into effect January 4, but the company is planning a phased implementation throughout 2010.

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