Bring the brand specialist in upfront

I hear it all the time and have been there too. The designer and the corporate marketing communications team (let's assume the typical setup - not integrated) are brought in at the last minute to "finish the job" on a project by "getting the word out". Nobody has consulted the marcom team to see if the project makes sense from a marketing perspective, is appealing to the customer, may have pitfalls, etc. And they think the designer is just there to slap a pretty picture on top, no need to coordinate with the strategic message or the overall brand. Lots of time and money wasted this way.

How to get over this if you are drawn into it?

1. Be honest - ask questions, raise specific concerns.
2. Stick to your core competency. Don't question the business model unless you have the technical knowledge to do so.
3. Partner with the designer if you're organizationally stovepiped. Get on the same page.
4. Do the best you can. Focus on simple, clear, credible messages about the project, even if it is not perfect.
5. Use and build a network of brand supporters to promote better brand alignment in the future.

25 Ways To Use Technology for Brand-Aligned Communication

This week I spoke at the ALI Strategic Internal Communication in Government conference about using technology to facilitate internal communication.

The starting point was that everything a communicator does, including the use of technology, should ultimately be in support of total brand alignment.

Then I progressed into a discussion of technology itself, and how to implement it effectively given a specific mission, culture, communication style, and desired brand.

Here is some actionable advice on this subject:

1. Put your logo on every communication—external website, intranet, blog, etc.
   
2. Work within the culture, not against it, to facilitate technology adoption.
   
3. Keep your message consistent across channels/platforms.
   
4. Purposely customize your external website to an internal audience.
   
5. Use technology to facilitate human interaction, not replace it.
   
6. Reassess user rights frequently to protect against information leaks.
   
7. Accept criticism (e.g. via blog) but insist that employees put their name on it.
   
8. Treat technology as a necessity not an option.
   
9. Use technology strategically—filter information to the right people at the right time.
   
10. Don’t over-write—short and simple is best online, where people scan and don’t read.
    
11. Longer documents should be in deeper links that people can print if they need to.
    
12. Use technology to inform your employees of an issue before the media does.
    
13. Customize delivery of information according to employee usage habits—email, online, handheld device, etc.
    
14. Start small and build on incremental success and word of mouth—start a revolution and it may backfire.
    
15. Build in extensive support and training for new technologies.
    
16. Keep print materials available—just use them sparingly.
    
17. Use multiple and overlapping channels to communicate—not just one.
    
18. Make the business case for incorporating new technologies—start with functional needs and move to cultural.
    
19. Collaborate extensively to achieve buy-in around new technology initiatives.
    
20. Keep technology simple—especially for the communicators who will use it.
    
21. Evolve strategy and execution continuously—never rest on your laurels.
    
22. Ask for feedback and act based on it.
    
23. Obtain metrics where you can.
    
24. Don’t use technology only for technology’s sake—make sure it has a communication purpose.
    
25. Test your message before you send it—and check everything, to the smallest detail (including links!)

Leaders apologizing and branding

Financial Week has an article (January 28) about apologizing and members of the C-suite.

"Mattel’s Robert Eckert apologized for lead-tainted toys; JetBlue’s David Neeleman for letting passengers rot on the runway; and Apple’s Steve Jobs for uneven iPhone pricing."

Why are business leaders apologizing so much?

The article answers that "Branding 101 taught us all that a brand is more than a product name or a company logo and that loyalty can’t be bought with an ad. Brand loyalty is a gift from customers to companies that consistently earn their trust and demonstrate credibility over time. It can also be taken away at any time."

What this means is that consumers are ever-ready to withdraw their trust from brand leaders and take it elsewhere. It is upon brand leaders, therefore, to consistently demonstrate that they are worthy of brand trust.

The article tells leaders to be always mindful of whether their communication is good for the brand. Not only that, leaders should open up two-way modes of communication such as customer advisory councils and even a CEO blog.

The article concludes with advice to make sure that "every executive, manager and employee in the company understands what is important to customers and that every meeting ends with one question: “Will this decision help or hurt our brand?”

I think it is important for leaders to be ready to apologize when they do something that violates the brand. Apologizing restores the lost trust between the consumer and the company that could otherwise be expressed in hostile blog or YouTube posts. It is good business.

Employer branding and Generation Y (well, all generations)

The Caymanian Compass features an article about employer branding and Generation Y.

The article notes that a 2004 study by Deloitte Consulting LLP and the Institute of the Future found six basic workplace values that this generation holds. These are:

1. More loyal to the same company than Gen Xers
2. "Craves a sense of purpose and meaning"
3. "Desire access to mentors"
4. "Want to work in a tech-savvy environment"
5. "Open social networks...are important to them"
6. "Work-life balance"

How does this translate into branding?

Deloitte uses the “Develop–Deploy–Connect” model:

1. Develop people by offering "real-life learning opportunities"
2. "Deploy key individuals by working with them to identify...deep rooted skills, interest, and knowledge, and then use that information to help find the best fit"
3. "Connect them by providing the tools and guidance they need to...build networks"

The article cautions that "your employer brand must reflect" this model, noting that branding "can't be done simply by communicating a set of ideals, particularly for the cynical Gen Y group that has been bombarded by advertising messages all their lives."

Rather, employer branding "comes from the actual practices that make up an organisation." These include:

1. "The products and services you offer"
2. "Workplace culture"
3. "Points of differentiation from competitors."

I'm not sure that I see how the "develop-deploy-connect" model has anything to do with branding, but I do agree that branding is more than just providing a series of messages. The brand has to live in the product/service offering, in the culture (through vision, mission, and values) and in positioning (points of differentiation). But here again, I'm not sure I see the difference between the product/service offering and points of differentiation--to me these are one and the same. So the brand lives in the culture (which can be the unique way that the organization develops, deploys, and connects) and the positioning. And this is true not just for Gen Y, but for all generations.

Which brings me to a book I just finished reading. It's called Brand From the Inside, by Libby Sartain and Mark Schumann. The book purports to tell you how to build an employer brand, through eight steps. But I thought this book was a lot of nonsense gibberish. I didn't get the message at all. The authors don't provide one single concrete example of employer branding that makes any sense to me, with the exception of FedEx's "Purple Promise" and the "Freedoms" that Southwest provides to its employees. Plus they repeat themselves over and over again.

Here are some examples of the vague advice this book gives:

1. "Your employer brand must define what your business needs from your employees." (p. 31)Well, duh! But why not just call it the overarching brand and have employees contribute to that?

2. "Your employer brand must define on-brand behavior." (p. 36) Again, duh! What do you think an employer brand should do, define off-brand behavior?

3. "Your employer brand must connect what happens outside to what happens inside." (p. 37) This advice is just silly. There is only one brand, and it connects everything.

After reading this book, I am starting to think that the concept of employer branding makes no sense. There is not one brand that faces the public and another brand that faces employees. There is a single brand, and everybody has to understand it, internalize it, and contribute to it. That means the culture reflects it, as well as the positioning. No special accommodations should be made because you're talking to an internal audience rather than an external one.

I also disagree with the authors' advice to make a so-called "business case" for employer branding because no models are yet available (that I know of) that can determine the value an employer brand adds to the business.

At the end of the day, as former chief marketing officer at Coca-Cola Sergio Zyman might say (as in his book The End of Marketing As We Know It), you brand your business because it helps you to make more money from your customers. You tell your employee what the brand is all about--you show them what it's all about--because it will help you to drive sales. That is the bottom line. That is their motivation--to help the business succeed. All this other nebulous stuff about energizing the workforce with an emotional commitment is just pie in the sky. You can present benefits statements wrapped in a brand until you're blue in the face--but I think employees see right through it. Everything the company does should be about selling to the outside, not selling to the inside. Your employees are already sold on the brand (or else they should be), and that's why they work for you.

Switching agencies and branding

A new article in Adweek (January 14, 2008) reports that in a survey of chief marketing officers, “nearly half of marketers plan to fire at least one of their agencies and change direction,” according to the Chief Marketing Officer Council’s second annual forecast.

A total of 825 chief marketing officers were surveyed. They are turning “away from traditional advertising and public relations and toward ‘customer-facing’ and lead generation programs such as event marketing and e-mail.”

Nearly half of respondents, 45 percent, said they were going to change agencies in 2008. They plan to fire their Web design and development firms, direct marketing agencies, general ad agencies, and PR firms.

The article quotes Dave Murray, executive vice president of the CMO Council, who said that Web “is the top priority in terms of brand, customer engagement, insight.” And chief marketing officers are sick of “a lack of innovation,” “no value-added thinking,” and “poor creative.”

Not that they’re spending less money. Fully half of respondents say they will spend more on marketing, including “e-mail programs, CRM, marketing performance measurement dashboards and search engine marketing.”

It appears that the most marketing dollars are being allocated to “strategy and branding,” followed by events, trade shows, operations, direct marketing, sales support, online, and advertising.

So what does this survey show? Marketing officers want to get closer to the customer, and they believe that experiential marketing—direct contact—and the Web are the way to do that. They are less interested in advertising than they were before, certainly.

This is a seismic shift for branding. We are now witnessing the advent of the interactive brand age, and the death of one-way communication models like advertising. Marketers are paying heed to what customers are saying (whether directly or indirectly), which is that they want more in-touch modes of being connected with than just a 30-second commercial. It will be interesting to see where this trend takes us.

Branding and the upcoming U.S. presidential election

The News & Observer (January 8, 2008) recently published a negative article about branding in the political arena, “Choosy voters choose to go beyond branding.” It’s about the “fusion of ‘branding’ and politics that characterizes not only the way candidates and consultants pitch campaigns to the public, but also the way many of us now see public life.” The author calls this fusion “branditics.”

The author argues that “branditics” reduces the complexity of politics to simplistic messages, and says “Brands work better in grocery stores than in the White House.”

The writer understands branding well: It is indeed “the process of taking something on a shelf or in an office park and transforming it into an emotional experience that pulls us in, makes us believe, inspires us to buy. A strong brand captures, compresses and conveys an organization's values, the promise of its products and the guarantee of a consistent customer experience.”

However, he does not believe that potential presidents should be sold like “cans of Coke.” He does not believe that we should be content with oversimplified labels such as “security” for Giuliani, “competency” for Clinton, “faith” for Huckabee, or “hope” for Obama.

The problem, he says, is that branding closes off choices for the candidates whereas they need “room to maneuver,” to be flexible.

I have to disagree with this author. I think the candidates, particularly Obama, Clinton, and Giuliani, are doing a great job branding themselves for public consumption. In an election where it is sometimes hard to tell apart the candidates’ positions on complex issues, we need a shortcut that helps us define who we may be voting for. Branding doesn’t close off choices for the candidates, it merely encapsulates exactly who they are, what they value, what they promise to the American people, and how they will make that experience consistent.

Related to this is the question of “rebranding America”—which candidate will be the best at giving the U.S. the image makeover many feel it needs? Some feel that it is Obama, because of his race—“A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy”—they believe that America needs a nonwhite president to convey the message that we are not Anglo-elitists bent on dominating the world. I think that is certainly a possibility. A Clinton presidency would, to me, have a similar effect—in electing a female we would be sending a strong message about our beliefs in equality and diversity and those beliefs are far-reaching. Would electing Giuliani be good for the U.S. brand? Probably not—right now we need to project an image of world diplomacy, not stubbornness and being closed off to other nations and other views. How about McCain? I say, eh—I don’t get much of a brand image there, other than that he’s sort of a standard Republican, whatever that means. And in my view none of the other candidates really stand much of a chance right now…if they do at some later time then I’ll weigh in on their brand image.

Any way you look at it, branding is really critical right now in the U.S. elections. It’s an overall positive for the voter, who gets to make more meaningful choices, and it’s a way to hold candidates accountable to some philosophy or value system that they will have to stick with. It is further a way to help the American voter decide what kind of image they want to project in the world as a nation, and now is a critical time for that kind of decision to take place.

Country branding – an instructive article on Brand Kenya

Nairobi’s Business Daily (8 January 2008) carried an excellent opinion piece on what Kenya needs to do to build a country brand, especially in the face of the current instability. “Whereas we had reached a point where Kenya was seen as a case study in political tranquility and economic stability, we are now being showcased in the international media as a war-torn economic time bomb,” writes the author, the CEO of Interbrand Sampson East Africa. “One solution to counter this is to create a strong country brand.”

According to the writer, a country brand offers the following key benefits, and I strongly agree:

1. Improves a nation’s image in general (obviously)
2. Aligns citizen’s way of thinking about the country “and speeds up healing and reconciliation”… “builds up patriotism and pride.”
3. Positions a nation “way above its peers”…offers a “competitive edge” as countries “compete…for tourism, inward investment and export sales.” (Maybe this is three separate benefits?) Specifically, it “gives weight to the ‘made in’ label because it will positively aid the sale of products in foreign markets.”

How do you develop a country brand? The writer notes that you need:

1. The involvement of “government, business, the arts, education and importantly the media.” (I wonder how a country can involve the media if the media’s role is to maintain impartiality and be above notions like branding. The media might report on branding, but how would they be a part of it?)

2. “To find out how your country is perceived both internally by citizens and externally by people abroad who you want to influence.” (“You should also consult with opinion leaders…and compare their views.”) This step cannot be underestimated. It is the critical marketing research piece that every brand requires in order to be successful.

The resulting “brand idea and positioning…positively and clearly differentiates the country from any other.”

This “enables the development of messaging to the various audiences previously identified.”

The writer goes on to state that “the most difficult part of country branding is on the ground roll out. You should work out a programme to make the strategy tangible through improvement projects.” (I’m not sure I understand that part. What kind of improvement projects? How does this relate to the brand?)

The author further writes that it is challenging to create a collaborative system to implement the brand strategy (across government, business, the media, etc.), “without making it look too governmental, because people will instinctively avoid working with it.” (My question is, why will people not want to work with the government on a brand strategy for the country? This does not make intuitive sense to me.)

The author states that although executing the strategy takes time, the important thing is to “be consistent, building an integrated picture and always backing it with quality.” This should be unaffected by what is going on politically. (I am not sure, again, how the strategy is executed unless by traditional means—advertising, marketing promotions, online awareness-building, etc.)

Overall I found this article very useful and highly instructive—for country branding or any other kind of branding, for that matter. The key equation is: collaboration + research = brand positioning and messaging.

Of course, there is always the question of brand vision—is there a way to circumvent the research process and come up with a vision for the brand that is derived from someone’s personal genius? I think so in theory, although it is risky for an entire country to do that.

Finally, there is the question of execution, which remains murky. How exactly do you implement a brand strategy for a country? Aside from advertising (or maybe the primary tactic is advertising)? I would like to read more in these kinds of articles about specific brand-building approaches, both for country branding and branding in general. I am reading another brand book now and it also suffers from the same murky approach to actual implementation…more on that in a future post.