Don't live the brand, make the brand live
Thinking differently about brand engagement
By Cheryl Giovannoni
If you've ever gone through a brand launch, you're probabbly aware that for all the excitement surrounding the new brand , all teh fanfare and giveaways and special events, it's hard to know what to do after the dust settles. The brand idea might sound terrific - visionary, distinctive, irresistible - but what are you supposed to do with it? How do you actually take what you stand for and make it real? How do 'innovative', 'partner', or 'super-sonic'apply to your day-to-day job?
Many start by asking the question "How can I ensure my people live the brand?" This is fundamentally the wrong question - not only does it beget an introspective process with little tangible output, but it also misses a big opportunity. Instead, you should ask "How can the brand transform the way our customers experience us?"
Taking this somewhat different perspective will provide focus, tangibility and substance to an otherwise airy topic that can become easily dismissible by cynics. No one can argue with the requirement to provide a better experience for customers.
We all know a powerful brand can help generate not only a better customer experience, but one which is both memorable and differentiated- one taht creates stories and engenders reconsideration. Just look at the Virgin Upper Class head massages as a powerful example of this. It is no longer enough for a brand to distinguish itself through an ad campaing or logo. Brands such as Apple, Google, IKEA and Starbucks are considered global leaders not because of their sleek logos but because of the relevant and unique experiences they offer to customers - be it online, in the retail shop, or through the products and services themselves.
Of course it's your people who deliver your brand's promise to customers, so any serious branding initiative mustengage employees as priority. ultimaltely, this is about putting the brand at the center of your business then making sure everything you do and say delivers on it, always keeping your customers firmly at the forefront of your decisions.
To do this your employees must understand how to use the brand promise as a filter for all their decision-making. So if a brand is all about 'the friendly , personal touch', a sponsorship manager may opt to align his brand with local village fetes rather than with a football team. Or the HR department may decide to review all job specs and the interview process to ensure that only friendly, personable individuals are considered as viable candidates.
Internal branding, brand assimilation, brand alignment, employer branding - call it what you will. The point is, brand engagement programs capture employees'hearts and minds so customer scan get a brand-differentiated experience. All too often these types of programmes focus too much on internal navel gazin grather than delivery to customers.
Successful brand engagement programmes aim to inspire, educate and enable employees to deliver the brand in their day-to-day roles. They shift brand to the center of the organisation, where it becomes the focus of everything the company and its employees think about and do. With this new mindset, brand becomes not only a medium of communication with the outside world but also a driver of internal 'on brand'choices and decisions. The result is a transformation in the way business is conducted throughout an organisation - and more importantly, the delivery of a differentiated customer experience.
Easier said that done. Putting brand at the centre of the business is admittedly a long-term effort, not an overnight fix. Many systems may need to be revisited, such as operational processes, organisational structure, training, key performance indicators and employee rewards.
The trick to making your brand engagement programme work lies in providing an engaging and inspiring dimension asa well as a practical component that groundsthe brand in day-to-day activities.
If your aim is to deliver a differentiated customer experience then a brand engagement programme must achieve three things. First, it must help people understand their role in delivering the brand through the customer experience. Second, it must help people understand and be passionate about the brand so they are motivated to do what's required. And third, it must provide ways for people to immerse themselves in an experiment with the brand.
Connect the customer
Each time your brand touches a customer, an opportunity is created for the company to build a relationship, elicit an emotional attachement, earn trust and engender loyalty. Employees are often busy with the operational aspects of the business and forget to think about their customers'perspective. They need to be reminded to do so.
A customer journey framework is a useful way to help emplyees understand the connections they build with people through their brands. By mapping each instance that a customer touches your brand, it helps employees visualise the way their specific roles within the firm influence brand delivery. For example, people in charge of a company's user interface or network services need to realise that they may ahve an even larger role to play in delivering the brand promise than do customer service representatives and sales associates.
The framework of the customer journey can be used by management and employees alike to focus on important touch points, identify on and off-brand delivery, benchmark areas for improvement, and find places where they can create a 'brand spike'a wow moment that delivers the brand story to customers in a memorable way. For management, the customer journey helps them define the strategic imperatives they must commit to in order to deliver on the brand promise. As noted, these imperatives often include organisational and process changes. For employees, it is useful working tool for determing specifications they can take to improve the customer experience and deliver the brand more powerfully.
Make it memorable
People remember the things that excite them, and you want your brand to be one of them. A new brand should stick in the minds of employees long after they leave the launch presentation. This is no easy task; it requires a certain familiarity with employees and a dose of ingenuity.
Painting a portrait of the future can be a powerful way to make a brand real and to generate excitement. Lacklustre attemps at this are sometimes made in brand films by using swelling sound effects and footage of soaring eagles.But a tangible illustration that captures the potential of a brand is much more effective. One accounting firm used a 30-minute play to gain buy-in of the new brand by 300 senior partners. The play began by depicting current life at the company and its difficulty functioning as a global entity, then fast forwarded three years to show what things might be like for employees and clients once the new brand becomes fully embedded in the company. The play made such an impact that participants ranked it highest among all events at the three-day conference. Not only this, but they unanimously endorsed the global internal roll-out of the new brand.
Symbols and stories also help make a brand memorable and keep it fresh. One seemingly small but effective touch that energy giant BP uses is placing potted Aloe Vera plants in the lobby of its head quarters. Of all the green plants, Aloe Vera converts the most carbon-dioxide to oxygen. As such, it embodies a core value of the BP brand: to be'green'. Every day as employees walk into the office, the plants remind them of their shared corporate vision - to go beyond petroleum - and the imperative to develop renewable energy.
Practice makes perfect
The best way to learn something is to be immersed and stimulated by it. You don't learn to speak Spanish by taking a class once a week. You do learn it by living in Spain for a while, sorrounded by Spanish with every opportunity to practice it.
Similarly, to turn a brand concept into reality, it must be brought to life for employees. One of the ways to do this is to establish what we call a brand lab - a physical place where your employees can actively 'experiment' with the brand. Make it a place where people can experience the brand in much the same way it might be experienced by the customer. As an interactive environment full of brand and customer stimulus, this is a practical, hands-on way of letting people learn about the brand and its delivery to customers. To be effective, it should be a place where employees and outside partners can practice what they do day-to-day, be it marketing, product development, business planning, or customer service. Think of a brand lab as a learning-by-doing center, an on-going brand-training experience for everyone who touches your brand.
Engage to transform
Brand engagement isn't about bombarding people with autocratic orders; instead, it gives them the vision, structure and confidence to turn brand into action. When people are engaged with your brand's promise, they become active participants in its delivery, in all aspects of your business.
By rallying your people around your brand promise, you don't just help them to live the brand, they can help you to transform your business. Your people become your most powerful asset for delivering brand. And that's powerful change.
