When a business grows through acquisition, the brand rarely keeps up.
You bolt on a company here, absorb another one there, and before you know it you’re running five businesses with five names, five websites, five LinkedIn pages, and five sets of marketing materials. From the outside, nobody knows you’re connected. From the inside, nobody feels like they belong to the same team.
That was the reality for enevo – or C80 Group, as they were known when they first came to us.
The problem behind the problem
C80 Group had built a strong business. Five specialist companies operating across building control, sustainability, energy services and building services design. The businesses were good. The people were good. But the brand structure was holding them back.
CEO Mark Heptonstall and Commercial Director Chris Tongue had ambitious plans. They wanted to consolidate, make more acquisitions, and position the business as a national player. But every new acquisition meant another brand, another website, another set of collateral. The cost and complexity of going to market as five separate entities was unsustainable.
More importantly, the fragmentation was hiding the true scale and capability of the business – from customers, from potential investors, and from their own teams.
Insight: understanding the real picture
Every project we take on starts with Insight. Before we design anything or name anything, we need to understand the business from the inside out.
We spoke to teams across all five businesses. We interviewed individuals at every level. We carried out market research, looked at the competitive landscape, and got under the skin of how the business actually operated – not just how leadership described it. We also spoke to their wider network and, critically, their customers.
The internal picture was clear. People felt disconnected. Many didn’t know what the wider group actually consisted of, let alone what their colleagues in other divisions did. There was no shared identity to rally around.
The customer interviews were equally revealing. Clients typically knew the individual business they worked with but had no idea about the rest of the group’s services. We heard it more than once – “We didn’t realise they did that.” Every time a customer said those words, it represented revenue the group was leaving on the table.
This wasn’t a branding problem. It was a commercial problem wearing a branding disguise.
Strategy: finding the right position and the right name
With a clear picture of where enevo stood, we moved into Strategy – working out how to position the business and what to call it.
We developed over 50 name options across multiple naming territories – existing words, made-up words, lateral concepts, and entirely new creations. We were looking for something that could represent the full breadth of the business today while leaving room to grow into tomorrow.
The naming process is never as simple as picking your favourite. Legal checks, trademark searches, and domain availability all play their part – and they have a habit of killing your best options. Anyone who’s been through it knows the frustration.
We landed on enevo – a combination of “enabling” and “evolution.” It captured the essence of what the business does and, critically, it wasn’t tied to any single service or specialism. It could grow as the business grew.
Alongside the name, we developed the positioning and brand messaging that would give enevo a clear, unified way of talking about themselves – to customers, to investors, and to future recruits.
Make: bringing the brand to life
With the strategy locked in, we moved into Make – the phase where everything becomes real.
We developed three brand identity routes, each with its own concept and creative direction, to show how enevo could come to life in distinctly different ways. The chosen route was a unanimous decision from the leadership team. The symbol features a capital E, a building, and three ticks – a nod to enevo’s focus on testing, inspection and certification. It didn’t just look right. It felt strategically right. It positioned enevo as a modern, tech-focused consultancy with national ambition.
From there, we built out everything the business needed to go to market. Business stationery. Investor videos. Investor memorandums. The brand had to work in a boardroom pitching for funding just as well as it worked on a hard hat at a building site.
The new website was designed to do three jobs at once – attract talent from across the country, build credibility with investors, and give enevo’s teams the tools to cross-sell their services. Specific landing pages and insight pieces armed their people to express their expertise under one unified banner.
The results
Within 18 months, enevo grew revenues by 52% organically – from 3.6 million to 5.4 million. They doubled their EBITDA. They welcomed 25 new team members. They landed several blue-chip clients. They secured funding from a well-known retail bank. And they were recognised in The Times Top Places to Work 2025 in the small business category.
That last one is worth pausing on. A fragmented group of five separate businesses, each with its own identity, would never have projected the confidence and cohesion needed to make that list. The brand made the reality visible.
Sales conversion improved. Cross-selling increased. Recruitment became easier. And internally, teams felt prouder and more connected to something bigger than their individual division.
As CEO, Mark Heptonstall put it – the new brand helped push the business forward and aligned everyone to their goal of becoming one of the UK’s leading TICC businesses.
The Takeaway
If your business has grown faster than your brand, you’re probably paying for it in ways you can’t immediately see. Duplicated costs. Missed cross-selling. Confused customers. Disjointed teams. A perception that doesn’t match your ambition.
Brand isn’t decoration. It’s the commercial infrastructure that holds your growth together.
If that sounds familiar, let’s talk.