Building harmony across multiple sub-brands

For nearly a decade, we’ve partnered with Informa to evolve its brand in step with a rapidly expanding global events portfolio. Through acquisitions, Informa Connect had amassed more than 2,000 specialist event brands worldwide. Each held strong market value, but together they created a fragmented and inconsistent brand landscape.

Our task was twofold:

First, to build a systematic yet flexible identity framework that could unify this diverse ecosystem, protect the equity of acquired brands, and support scalable growth — including the integration of Winsight’s 25 foodservice brands.

Second, to translate this system into the digital space, designing an online presence and booking platform that gives every brand the right expression and every customer a seamless experience.

Mergers and acquisitions bring both opportunity and complexity.

For Informa, every acquisition introduced valuable brands with loyal audiences, but also new inconsistencies. Branding became a critical tool for integration. Preserving the recognition and trust of acquired brands, providing a clear visual and verbal link back to Informa, and creating new efficiencies in operations and marketing.

This approach was built on a long-term relationship where we’ve acted as custodians of Informa’s evolving brand world. Each new acquisition, such as the Winsight portfolio of 25 foodservice event brands, was able to slot seamlessly into the system without losing its distinctive strengths.

The objectives were ambitious:

• Create a brand system that gives visual cohesion while allowing individual events to stand on their own.
• Move beyond guidelines to centralised, scalable tools that improve event experiences and digital communication.
• Ensure the new identity was flexible enough to work across 2,000+ events, 70 countries and multiple industries.
• Deliver a new website platform to support brand creation, event marketing and e-commerce.

Our strategy

Our audit revealed a fragmented brand landscape: only 1% of events had guidelines, teams worked in silos with inconsistent outsourced design, and multiple legacy platforms slowed delivery while blocking cross-sell opportunities. Each new acquisition added to the complexity, bringing fresh audiences and brand architectures to align.

We responded with a people-first, systematic approach. Immersion workshops shaped a new brand hierarchy and a flexible identity system of symbols, colour palettes, typography and tone of voice. Transition plans balanced full integration with strategic retention of bespoke identities, while controlled guidelines empowered teams to create and manage their own brands. The result was a cohesive framework that unified thousands of events yet remained adaptable to local markets.

The identity system

The framework needed to be both robust and flexible. To ensure every event could stand apart while still feeling part of the Informa family, we built a modular visual system made up of consistent core assets and infinite combinations.

• 300+ industry-specific symbols forming the foundation of each identity
• 3,500+ colour combinations to give breadth without losing cohesion
• Unified logo system to create instant recognition across the portfolio
• Defined typography hierarchy for clarity and consistency
• Pre-set design rules balancing freedom and control

This system gave every event a recognisable, ownable visual language, while reinforcing its connection to the wider Informa brand.

Digital expression

The digital experience was just as critical as the visual identity, with event websites serving as the main sales channel. To scale this, we designed CORE, a custom CMS and brand management platform that transformed brand assets into fully functional, on-brand websites.

Marketers could launch an SEO-ready site in hours, integrate payments and marketing tools, and generate consistent assets automatically. By turning branding into a digital product, CORE streamlined operations, cut costs, and enhanced customer experience across thousands of events.

Implementation support

To ensure long-term success, we equipped internal teams with detailed guidelines, templates and training, empowering them to maintain brand consistency across all channels.

Results

The impact was significant across brand, digital and business performance:

• £10m+ online event sales since launch, including £6m in the first five months.
• 141% increase in conversion rates.
• £200k+ operational savings from streamlined brand logistics.
• 8% uplift in share price within a year of rollout.
• Gold at the Transform Awards for Best Brand Consolidation.

Most importantly, the project renewed energy in a mature business and provided a future-proof platform for continuous M&A integration, ensuring Informa can keep scaling without losing coherence.