Brand Alignment Articles
Brand is Image and Image is Brand….
For those that believe brand and image are separate and in no way linked may need to rethink their position. In the media recently have been two prime examples of how brand and image are closely interrelated, albeit almost the same thing. Brand in its simplest context are those attributes that makes one product or company stand apart from another. Image is how products and companies present themselves, through logos, colours and artefacts.
The definition of brand needs to go one step deeper because those attributes that make a product or company stand out from others stems from something beyond image and below the surface of what we see – that part of the iceberg that lays underneath the waterline. These are normally considered core values. That is, those values that help us create a relationship with products, services and companies so we then grow to know and trust them.
Getting Paid NOT to use a Brand!
Creative agencies have long used “personification” as a technique to develop and describe a brand. Describing inanimate products as people allows consumers to understand and relate more closely with the product.
Taking this further many organisations appoint brand ambassadors or spokespeople that represent the attributes that they would like consumers to associate with their product or organisation. A good example of this was Gillette who associated themselves with the world’s best performing athletes. In 2009 Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Thierry Henry were Gillette’s global ambassadors. Securing these three ambassadors cost Gillette millions!
Building Brand Value for Both Customers and Employees
According to many experts we are now in the decade of the brand. However, it may be more accurate to say that we are in the decade of brand management. After all, brands have been around for a long time.
For sometime now, The Right Group has advocated that companies should get their brand in order internally before they communicate externally. This point of view has often been met with resistance, particularly as traditionally the development of brands has been focused on external advertising and promotion and has been driven by the marketing and communication departments.
Measuring Brand Equity
Brands today play an increasing number of important roles. They improve consumers’ lives, influence their purchasing behaviour and enhance the financial value of companies. More importantly though, they differentiate your product or service from other products and services designed to satisfy the same need. The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the products or services of a seller and differentiate them from those of competitors.
Why Brand Alignment is so important
True brand alignment results from having the brand in line with the customer and employee perceptions of an organisation and the activities and level of commitment and intent demonstrated both internally and externally by that organisation.
Differentiated sustainable brands invariably are founded upon strong organisational values. True strategic branding, we believe, must be an ‘inside out’ approach. After all, employees are the primary brand audience, the ones who will deliver the brand to customers. Brand Alignment between the internal and external is the lifeblood of brand-based organisational culture. If your people accurately know and understand ‘what your brand stands for’, this begets appropriate customer expectation.