Branding Articles
Internal Branding – the Key to reconnecting your Customers and Employees
Customers drive sales and profitability. So how do your employees interact with and engage customers? How would your customers describe their experience? Do your customers have an expectation on how your employee will represent your brand?
So how does an organisation manage its customer experience to ensure its people, processes and culture are reinforcing customer expectations? A key foundation of customer experience management is internal branding.
Internal branding in essence is ‘living’ and ‘delivering on’ your organisation’s brand promises. It is an organisation-wide initiative that enables all employees to understand how they can personally impact on a customer’s experience and contribute to building the company’s reputation and brand.
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.
Attraction and Retention – Navigating the Perfect Storm
The recently released HAYS Salary Guide points to a “perfect storm” on the horizon for employers. The survey highlights 3 factors which will contribute to the storm. These are:
Positive Hiring Intentions – most employers are planning on hiring more people
Widening gap between candidate and employer salary intentions – most candidates expect more than employers are prepared to pay
Skills shortages – 54% of employers in Australia are experiencing difficulty in filling critical positions. This number is significantly higher in WA and QLD. Australia is ranked fourth out of 39 countries for skills shortages in critical roles.
Is the Qantas brand still well-liked?
Well, does it matter? Do we have a real choice? After all, the latest IBISWorld report indicates that Qantas (along with its subsidiary Jetstar) is the clear leader with a 74% market share of domestic passenger travel. Virgin Blue’s shift away from the ‘No-Frills’ image and business model is still in transition: its point of differentiation does not command the price premium that Qantas does, while its price (and cost structure) is similar to that of Jetstar, a rising star to whom it has lost market share over the last five years. Having outlasted its competitors (remember Ansett and Australian Airlines), the brand is quite endearing and the history or legacy appears to associate it as Australia’s airline.
Consumer-celebrity attachment: The key to brand endorsement success?
A common feature of marketing strategy is celebrity endorsement, with brands leveraging a celebrities’ popularity to boost their own. The influence of such endorsements is undeniable, with a plethora of market research supporting the notion that sales, stock returns, company image and awareness, amongst other things, are boosted by having a celebrity on board. An obvious indication of the sheer power these endorsements have in the marketplace is the speed at which brands seek to distance themselves from celebrities who ‘behave badly’. Tiger Woods, Kate Moss and Kobe Bryant are just some of the celebrities that were quickly dumped by brands they represented after personal indiscretions became public. Perceptions of brands are inextricably associated to those of their celebrity backers, both good and bad.
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!
How much is Your Reputation worth?
As a shareholder in News Corporation I have followed the News of the World phone hacking scandal with much interest. Many analysts would argue that News of the World represents less than 1 % of the News Corporations profits and that what happens in this small part of the Murdoch empire should have minimal (if any impact) on the overall performance of the organisation.
These analysts are wrong; the share price of the Organisation has fallen by almost 20% since the scandal started and has wiped billions of dollars off the company’s market value. So how can it be that what happened in a tiny division of News Corporation has had such a monumental impact on News Corporation’s overall share price?
When Brands get Branded
The difference between having a brand and being branded is an issue that has arisen in the news recently. The plight of Tiger Airways and The News of the World are examples where a company has lost the brand reputation and, as a consequence, have now been branded by the public. A quote from billionaire businessman Warren Buffett comes to mind and managers at the top and middle ranks of the two companies could have heeded its warning. Buffett was quoted as saying, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you’ll do things differently”.
Survival of the fittest Brands
Strong brands can weather the tough times and come out as strong, if not stronger, on the other side. A recent report on the value of global brands by Millward Brown (click here to go to report homepage) found that the top 100 ranked brands increased in value by 24% in 2011 from pre-recession levels in 2008, and by 64% since 2006. Further, all 13 product sectors measured saw increases in overall brand value since 2010, demonstrating the ability of strong brands to endure the hard times and emerge with the upper hand.
The AFL’s move towards a Free Market
The AFL is one of the most regulated employment markets in the world. Recent moves by the AFL Players Association towards “Free Agency” mean that some of the restrictions on player transfers are now being removed. This effectively is a move towards a free market. In spite of these changes salary caps and draft concessions still structurally drive competition equalisation and restrict player movement.
The AFL has placed artificial barriers in the market to ensure that the rich clubs cannot simply go out and “buy” the best players. The AFL’s number one objective is to develop their brand. They do this in part by creating a structure that creates an even competition. A more even competition makes for closer games. Closer games enhance the popularity of the sport and this drives profitability.