Merging Esso Iceland and Bilanaust (C)

By December 2006, Hermann Gudmundsson (the chief executive officer of both Esso Iceland and Bilanaust) had spent the past 10 months evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of both organizations, and determined that the best approach going forward would be to, "consider creating a new organization with a new structure and a new brand name." He weighed the advantages, disadvantages and costs of either retaining two separate companies and their associated brand-image, or merging into one new organization. Gudmundsson was facing resistance from both the board of directors and three different advertising agencies to forgo the Esso brand; but with an ultimate mandate to increase shareholder value he needed to figure out the best method, from a branding perspective, to achieve that objective.