Brand Strategy Articles
Australia’s Banks and Telstra – A real need to revisit their Brands
Strategic branding should precede marketing; it is the foundation of any organisation – its DNA. Branding sets the path and base for future marketing strategies and tactics. It is strategic whilst marketing is often very tactical and promotion based.
Strategic branding involves differentiating your business, product and/or service in the most compelling and significant way possible. Handled correctly, this involves an ‘inside-out’ approach, first by internally determining the company’s organisational values (what is valued, how staff conduct themselves). These are powerful enablers of your brand.
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.
Congruent Brand & Culture
With globalisation, Brands are so much more than just products and logos. They’re channels of self expression which transcend the label of ‘commodity’. Avenues through which most people express their personalities, attitudes, likes, dislikes and association to certain groups and communities. Brand is strategic, a long term imperative requiring Leadership to carefully consider and manage it across the entire organisation. This usually takes a collaborative effort involving both the HR, and Marketing Departments, which is best achieved through forming a Brand Steering Committee which can strategically understand the whole of business requirements.
Employee’s Perspective on Successful Internal Branding
Companies whose employees possess a strong knowledge of their brand have a competitive advantage. However, many organisations are still failing to provide the right information and support their people to deliver their organisation’s brand experience to customer.
In a recent article, Internal Branding: Exploring the Employee’s Perspective, the authors discuss internal branding from an employee perspective. The focus of the paper is on factors that were considered to be necessary for employees to successfully deliver their organisation’s brand promise.
The link between brand, culture and customer experience
Making the link between brand, culture and customer experience is not a new concept. However, effectively managing the link between these three concepts continues to challenge organisations. In the recent article Customer experience, organisational culture and the employer brand, the authors explore employer brand management and how you can use your employer brand to ensure your culture is aligned with your desired customer experience.
Characteristics of successful Employer brands
There has been a great deal of discussion on employer branding in the last decade. Organisations from a diverse range of industry sectors have formally defined, and are strategically managing their employer brand (eg Siemens, Honeywell, Accenture, Deloitte, Coca-Cola, Roche, Yahoo, Johnson and Johnson, Starbucks). Cultivating a unique employer brand experience is one method these organisations have chosen to attract and retain the most sought after talented employees; those who will enable them to generate success and secure ongoing profitability. In a recent article, Characteristics of Successful Employer Brands, the authors explore the perceived characteristics of successful and unsuccessful employer brands and construct a typology that organisations can use to assess their employer brands.
Developing a Customer Value Proposition
In today’s challenging market environment, it is imperative to provide the customer with superior value. Providing more for less is what today’s customers expect, if not demand.
Companies are aware of the importance of delivering customer value, but come unstuck when deciding what value is and whether it is being delivered to the customer.
A Customer Value Proposition is a statement of the end benefits customers can expect from a product or service at a given cost of obtaining those benefits. Customer value can be defined in many ways, but ultimately it is what the customer perceives it to be.
Achieving Positive Outcomes In A Tough Market
Branding is one of those activities that seems easy to reduce, right? Wrong!
There’s been a lot of commentary of late regarding business investment in a recession. Available research data outlines compelling reasons to continue to invest your brand. Failure to do so will result in your company falling behind in the immediate term and be slow to rebound when the market turns.
Profit Impact of Marketing Strategy (PIMS) is arguably the most robust database that has been used to study the impact of marketing during recession on profitability. By examining company’s performances versus business investment during periods of recession and recovery, the lessons learned are clear. Click Here To Read More
Survive the slowdown by building brand loyalty
Harvard Business School Professor, John Quelch says “Instead of cutting the market research budget, you need to know more than ever how consumers are redefining value and responding to the recession.” He also states further that “successful companies do not abandon their marketing strategies in a recession; they adapt them.”
Many organisations simply examine the sales forecasts and cut spending across the board during a period of economic slowdown without considering how these cuts will impact on communication. Companies that do not ‘speak’ to their customers during recession times disengage them and find themselves vulnerable once the economy has regained momentum.
The Right Group appointed by Blackwoods to Review their Brand Strategy
Australia’s leading industrial and safety products supplier, Blackwoods has appointed The Right Group to review their brand strategy. The project involves undertaking an external brand audit involving market research and working with Blackwoods to develop a brand blue print and supporting implementation plan. The Right Group’s strategic branding services are based on the principles of leveraging brand as a source of sustainable competitive advantage and ensuring brand is internally aligned with operating activities, including culture.