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It's a name and a sales advantage

Expansive First Advantage puts its brand on 26 acquired companies to help cross-sell the various products.

By TAMARA EL-KHOURY
Published June 21, 2005

Ocala's National Background Data LLC has disappeared. So has Phoenix's Quantitative Risk Solutions LLC and Austin's MedTech Diagnostics Inc.

Twenty-six companies acquired in recent years by First Advantage Corp. dropped their names Sunday, taking on the name of the St. Petersburg-based employment screening company. The company also invested in another company as a majority owner.

First Advantage launched its new brand strategy this weekend in San Diego at the Society for Human Resource Management's annual conference. The announcement comes after an acquisition spree since First Advantage was formed in June 2003. At the time, the company had 600 employees. Today it has 2,300 and is growing.

"As we've gone out and acquired 26 or so companies we've also created 26 brands out in the marketplace," said Rick Mansfield chief marketing officer. "Many of these companies that we've purchased compete with each other."

He said the result was "logo soup." Customers weren't sure which companies offered which services.

With a new logo (a sky blue eagle eye) and Web site, the companies have been rebranded under the First Advantage name and divided into eight divisions handling different types of transactions from employment screening to tax consulting to investigative services.

"We haven't made a whole lot of forays into the cross-selling world," said Renee Svec, director of marketing and communications. "We can't keep on at this."

The strategy is to cross-sell between divisions, offering several services under one name. First Advantage has 45,000 customers around the world, Mansfield said.

"If we could sell every one of those customers just one or two more products or services, think about the impact that could have on us as an organization," Mansfield said.

"We think of the branding strategy as an enabler for our cross-selling strategy and our customer strategy. It's a much more simplified way for our market."

[Last modified June 21, 2005, 02:30:30]