The ongoing roll-up of Ovum into Informa has reached its next stage: Ovum Limited has been dissolved, and the Ovum logo has been dropped. Following the House of Brands strategy of Informa, Ovum has been rebranded as a product of Informa TMT Intelligence.
TMT Intelligence is, regarding offer and staffing, identical with Ovum. It seems improbable that Informa has created a duplicate brand without the intention of reducing the Ovum brand equity. TMT Intelligence is a service from Informa Business Intelligence, a division that “offers a portfolio of more than 100 digital subscription products”.
Moving from a House of Brands to a subbrand is tricky. As a result of the subbranding, the Ovum site continues to refer to itself as an analyst house, but its new logo is the forward icon of TMT Intelligence, and the strapline “TMT Intelligence | Informa ” clearly positions it as a service.
The general trend of subbranding is to transition from the old brand to the parent brand. One reflection of that is that Ovum’s new head describes himself as “MD of Informa’s TMT Intelligence Business.” Is is also instructive that he joins Ovum from trainline, an online retailer of railway tickets, and RightMove, a real estate website. His roles there suggest that the focus areas for the new Ovum are customer experience and smoother operations.
In the 2016-16 Analyst Value Survey, Ovum was the 9th most-used firm, down from 7th the year before. Will the stronger Informa subbranding give them the push they need to get back?
PS I think we have to assume that Informa didn’t test this: they are rolling up all the companies inside Informa Business Intelligence with the same ? icon. The names will live on for a while as products but it presumably reflects the integration of the business development teams.
