Company Branding 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.
What makes inspirational, trusted ‘Leadership Brands’?
Real Leadership Brands take an ‘inside-out’ approach to executive development and look to construct a pipeline of consistently excellent managers over concentrating on strengthening the skill level of individuals. In distinguishing between ‘individual’ and ‘brand’ leadership, ‘individual’ focuses upon developing leaders with the emphasis usually on personal qualities, whereas real ‘brand leadership’ centres on the methods and programs which secure future commercial success of an organisation and as such, are embedded in the organisational culture. If focusing on desirable traits of individual managers and leaders, then senior management is at risk of promoting very generic competency models.
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.
Retention and Talent Management following a downturn
Following fairly severe economic slowdown across global economies, cost reduction efforts naturally took centre stage as organisations sought to maintain profitability and remain competitive. A shift is underway, however, because organisational reactions to the downturn have had major unintended consequences for the relationship between organisations and their employees from both a brand and talent management perspective.
It’s important to recognise that the decisions you make in regards to talent management this year have far reaching consequences, often setting the tone for the relationship with potential employees for years to come. Basically, the only thing more worrisome than the prospect of too much change is too little change, especially in a downturn where many competitors are chasing too few customers and dollars.
Employee Engagement – Surveying and Practical Tips
There are very practical reasons behind the need to survey your employees about their level of engagement, not the least of which being that truly engaged employees deliver business value. A definitive correlation exists between employee engagement and desired business outcomes whether that be customer service, retention of talent, individual performance, team performance, business productivity, or even enterprise-level financial performance. Companies must actively seek to understand and act on behalf of their employees’ expectations and preferences. This can be achieved through the following:
Brand – Driving your bottom line!
A company’s culture really is its internal brand (what you stand for to your employees, stakeholders and vendors). Internally, culture plays a major part in driving revenue. Your customers and employees are human after all and operate on emotion.
Internal brand/culture is more than just this – it is about employee expectations and their behaviours (adhering to what makes your Company so unique). So how does internal brand/culture really have an effect on revenue?
Branding and Marketing – The Primary Differences
Important differences exist between branding and marketing and whilst the two are important, they are quite diverse.
Differentiation and ownership is a key component of any Branding process. The mental image, strong emotional connection and understanding in your customer’s mind about your product or service is considered brand. This usually involves establishing differentiated identity, philosophy and personality around your company, product or service which fulfils a specific customer want or need. Branding then really is the promise your company makes to the customer and employees, and the relationship you have with them.
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.
Reputation Matters!
Which companies have great reputations and why? Questions like these are interesting to think about because they speak to the visibility that some companies achieve over others and to the trust and respect we have for the many things they do. They therefore speak to a company’s reputation with consumers. Companies rightly care about being recognised (as well as what they are recognised for) because a good reputation attracts support from customers, investors, and potential employees.
There’s no doubt that companies today are increasingly under the public microscope. With soaring unemployment and company debt, employee lay-offs are the order of the day. I don’t think the public begrudges companies who for valid commercial reasons need to lay-off staff to stay afloat. Of course, lay-offs should be viewed as a last resort to other measures, but there needs to be equal pain shared across executives and the workforce. The manner in which staff-layoffs are dealt with should reflect fairness, openness and honesty.