MEI Industrial Solutions
Unifying and elevating an industrial leader for next-level growth.
Program
- Brand Strategy & Transformation
- 12-month engagement
With an expanding portfolio of acquired companies, MEI found its brand fragmented and its market presence diluted. They needed a cohesive, strategic approach to unify their brands and clearly articulate their extensive capabilities to customers, employees, and stakeholders alike.
To strategically realign and transform their brand for future growth, MEI turned to Thrive.
- Market & customer research
- Competitive analysis
- Brand architecture & strategy
- Brand positioning
- Narrative strategy & messaging
- Visual & verbal identity
- Brand guidelines & implementation
- Brand rollout & activation
Through comprehensive market research, stakeholder interviews, and a competitive assessment, Thrive identified significant brand confusion caused by MEI’s rapid growth through acquisition. We strategically evaluated five brand architecture scenarios—House of Brands, Endorsed Brand, Sub-brand, Branded House, and Single Brand structures—ultimately recommending a sub-brand structure.
This approach balanced maintaining established regional equity with clear visual and verbal connections to the parent brand, creating cohesion and clarifying MEI’s market position. The resulting architecture simplified communications, enhanced cross-selling opportunities, and established a strong, unified corporate identity poised for future acquisitions and market growth.
With the newly established architecture in place, Thrive and its design partner, Bolster, crafted a comprehensive brand identity system designed for future scalability and consistency. This system—anchored by the tagline “Built On Commitment” and the redefined acronym “Move. Engineer. Innovate.”—visually reinforced MEI’s core values of safety, integrity, responsiveness, and reliability.
Leveraging insights gathered through stakeholder research, the brand identity system addressed previous visual and narrative fragmentation, ensuring clear brand recognition and easy integration of future acquisitions. The resulting identity empowered MEI’s internal teams with clear brand guidelines, simplified decision-making, and aligned communications across all customer touchpoints.
An effective brand transformation requires more than visual alignment—it demands an authentic narrative that resonates deeply both internally and externally. Thrive developed a compelling brand narrative that bridged MEI’s longstanding reputation for operational excellence with its bold vision for the future.
This narrative highlighted MEI’s commitments to innovation, customer-centric solutions, and operational excellence. It also explicitly articulated the strategic shift from the outdated “Rigging & Crating” descriptor to the broader, more accurate “Industrial Solutions,” clearly defining MEI’s expansive capabilities and aligning perceptions of the brand with its future ambitions.
An effective brand transformation demands meticulous planning and thoughtful execution to fully realize its potential. Thrive managed MEI’s brand rollout in three carefully structured phases—Strategy & Planning, Communication & Training, and Campaign Execution—ensuring seamless internal adoption and consistent external communication. By engaging leadership and employees through workshops and training sessions, Thrive equipped internal teams to confidently embody and advocate for the refreshed brand identity.
Externally, Thrive activated targeted launch campaigns across digital, print, and experiential channels, immediately elevating market visibility and customer engagement. Post-launch activities sustained momentum, reinforcing MEI’s enhanced positioning and clearly articulating the breadth of its expanded industrial solutions. This strategic, comprehensive rollout ensured the new MEI brand resonated deeply, creating clarity, excitement, and measurable market impact.
