ACQUISITION AWARENESS CAMPAIGN FOR HARRIS CORPORATION
Internal and external marketing to promote the benefits of Harris’ Exelis acquisition.
The Challenge
Harris Corporation (now L3Harris) has been on the forefront of defense technology for decades, continually adapting to the rapidly changing market. When Harris made one of the largest acquisitions in defense industry history in 2015, they tapped MTN, Inc. to help spread awareness and generate excitement. The acquisition would nearly double the company’s size, bringing its employee count up to 23,000 people. Our task was to collaborate with them on an internal and external campaign to highlight the benefits and opportunities of the change, geared toward [employees and key stakeholders]. It would need to be turned around quickly, in order to coincide with the acquisition closing.
Our Approach
The campaign was split into two phases: an initial awareness campaign for the first 30 days and a values campaign to follow. The awareness campaign creative focused on showing how the unification of the two companies created exponential opportunities to improve their key attributes. Given the technological focus of the companies, we used a mathematical equation as the tagline: “Harris x Exelis = ” The product of the equation would show a key attribute (such as quality, opportunity or innovation) to the second power (i.e. Harris x Exelis = Innovation2). The creative also incorporated imagery from Harris’ various global facilities to showcase the depth and breadth of the new company and educate the audience on its new technologies and capabilities. The campaign was run internally and also used in various external applications during the initial stages of the acquisition.
As the awareness campaign rolled out, we created a values campaign for internal stakeholders. This campaign was meant to reinforce the identity of the company and communicate its mission and vision for the future. We positioned the employees as representatives of the values and showed how they exemplified them. This allowed us to highlight the various locations, new skillsets and increased diversity.
The Deliverables
MTN created the acquisition awareness and values brand campaign components. Deliverables included a series of capabilities videos, posters, rotating screensavers, email templates, and fact sheet templates.
The Results
The Harris x Exelis campaign ran for a number of months after the acquisition closing and expanded into a variety of collateral beyond the scope of the initial project.
We continue to have a strong relationship with this client and have worked closely together on a number of projects, even after their larger L3Harris merger.
Like What You See?
Then you’ll love what we can do. Contact us to learn about
our comprehensive marketing services: 321.779.1010.
