Company Branding Articles
Are you helping to put a man on the Moon?
There is a well-known story linking NASA and employer branding during the rush to place man on the moon. In this story, it is suggested that whilst inspecting the NASA facility prior to take-off, President Kennedy came across a janitor in the hallway. Casually asking the janitor what he specifically did in the facility. The janitor’s response was quite remarkable. Not “I clean the ablutions and mop the floors”. No, the janitor showed an organisational-centric response in saying “Mr. President, I am helping to put a man on the moon”. Is your employer brand so strong that all people within your company are aligned and committed to your organisation vision?
How to Turn Your Customers into Promoters?
We are living in a time now where customers can voice their opinions that will be heard by masses of other people around the globe. This may be a concern for some organisations as they increasingly lose control of their brand message. However, there is a very strong opportunity for organisations to foster advocates that will promote your brand. The same platform that customers used to voice their opinions is the same channel organisations should target to create a positive buzz around their brand. And they can do this by identifying and focusing on those customers that are brand promoters.
When saving a $ will cost you a Fortune
Over the last 15 years there have been a plethora of companies that driven by cost saving have chosen to outsource their help lines to overseas locations. The lure of cheap labour and the dramatic reduction in communications costs has made outsourcing Help Centres increasingly more financially attractive. Sadly, outsourcing Help Desk Services is now prevalent in many Industries as service providers seek to reduce their costs.
As a customer of a major Australian Telco I recently spent 3 hours on the phone to a gentleman in India called Raj and by the end of the conversation I was no closer to getting my issues resolved. His English was ordinary his product knowledge almost non-existent, worse still he had no understanding of how important my broadband is to me. By the end of the conversation the Telco’s brand had been damaged beyond repair. There is no doubt the Telco had saved money by outsourcing the service in the short term but what about the long term?
Creating a Meaningful Brand
In a recent video blog titled Rethinking the Idea of the Brand (25/02/11) on the Harvard Business Review website, author Umair Haque discussed the concept of brand as it is perceived today. To say we must think of brands as dynamic and continually evolving is nothing new; and we know that brands are by no means a static entity. Simply put, a brand, both organisational and employer, is a means by which companies can differentiate themselves from competitors and consumers can identify particular goods and services.
Brand and Deliver
If you had two minutes to describe your brand, what would you say? Do you even know what your brand stands for and whether it delivers on its key promises? Brand strategy consultants recommend that you should be able to confidently say yes to these questions. Global financial crisis or not, successfully identifying what your brand stands for and ensuring your brand is well managed is important to position your business to take full advantage of a market upturn.
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.
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.