Has Maverik Made a Mistake on its Kum & Go Rebrand?

With Maverik wrapping up its Kum & Go rebrands, as C-Store Dive reporter Brett Dworski detailed, in late November, it does so while facing some degree of scrutiny and criticism from onlookers.

Maverik has now established itself as a major player in both the Midwest and Mountain States convenience store spaces, having purchased ~400 c-stores from Kum & Go across Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

And while the Salt Lake City-based Maverik had seen its leadership allegedly promise to maintain both brands following the 2023 acquisition of Kum & Go, as an earlier report from Dworski outlined in full, that does not seem to have been a kept promise.

“It’s their decision. They can choose what they do… But certainly talking to them, their intent prior to the sale was to maintain both brands,” said former CEO Kyle Krause to the Des Moines Register on the subject of Maverik rebranding all Kum & Go stores, and brand materials, over to its existing framework and aesthetic.

Maverik faces an uphill battle in a variety of ways, per Dworski: First, Kum & Go was a family business for more than half a century, and had created something of a cult-like following among loyal customers – customers that may not have taken well to the aggressive rebrand, nor the axing of around 100 corporate Kum & Go staff in Des Moines.

Second, Maverik’s “adventure-themed” branding may not jive with its Midwest target audience, and that audience may also be expecting things to remain the same – an unlikely prospect given the timeline of events thus far.

It seems that Maverik’s c-suite is well aware of the difficulties that this comprehensive retooling of Kum & Go’s existing cache would create. During remarks made at CSP’s Outlook Leadership event in August, Maverik CEO Crystal Maggelet addressed this concern.

“It was months of going back and forth. We even did market studies to make sure that Maverik would be an accepted name in the communities. We understood that Kum & Go had a brand and loyalty just like Maverik,” Maggelet said at the time.

“From a marketing point of view, from an ease of operation and efficiency, we decided one brand was the way to go,” she added.

Maverik’s Rebranding of Kum & Go: What Does the Future Hold?

A wait-and-see approach seems to be the prevailing take on Maverik’s move thus far, with some degree of skepticism over the near-term future being hinted at by Dworski.

“Maverik has stirred up more controversy than it would probably like in the two years since acquiring Kum & Go. But now that its rebrands are done — and after selling dozens of other Kum & Go stores for undisclosed reasons — the Utah retailer has an opportunity to win over a customer base that, having lost a beloved brand, could be open to falling in love with a new one,” Dworski wrote.

“Earlier this year, a c-store industry expert told C-Store Dive that it’ll be interesting to see how the Midwest reacts to Maverik emerging in the region. Several months and hundreds of rebrands later, the c-store industry is about to find out,” he added.