You can’t really create a brand. That is, create a bunch of communications deliverables and design assets, roll them out to the rank and file, explain to everyone at the company what the company’s new brand is now, and expect employees to internalize that brand. It just doesn’t work.
Click to Tweet: ★ Going Deeper – Getting Employees To Internalize A Brand ★
Yet, that’s exactly the de facto methodology most brand managers use. I spoke to Bob Kennedy of McAfee for a previous blog about more effective branding, and in that interview he shared a process he and his team implemented at McAfee to connect their brand with what employee’s actually felt. More specifically, series of working sessions that let McAfee’s employees clarify what the brand meant to them, and then insert the brand DNA they already actually had into the branding process.
Crucial Brand Adoption Insights
Robin Matlock, Vice President, Corporate Marketing at VMware, saw Bob talk about his process and had a few crucial insights to share about what she felt was important that other senior managers keep in mind when doing a re-branding.
She feels that the key to Bob being so effective with the McAfee brand development and brand change was that he held inclusive discussions with each functional group, and at those meetings asked managers what they felt was the company’s brand and its values. What did the company stand for in their eyes?
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tangible ways would they incorporate *
Incorporating The Brand Tangibly
Then Bob asked them to go back to their groups and think about how they would specifically express those core brand ideas that they’d identified. What tangible ways could they incorporate those into their areas of responsibility and departments’ daily routine?
The impact of having multiple meetings, Robin noted, gave each of those groups time to process and absorb what they had identified with Bob and his team — in turn, that had a profound ripple effect on adoption by the people who were living the brand.
Interviewed:
Robin Matlock Vice President, Corporate Marketing VMwareYou can check out the original interview with Bob Kennedy “Getting Employees To Internalize A Brand”
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Busy Lizzie
August 24, 2012
Reblogged this on Busy Lizzies.
Steve Harrison
August 24, 2012
Steve, I agree entirely, especially the bit about getting the people to tell you “what the company stands for in their eyes”. All I’d add is this: once the research is done and the brand idea and values are ready to be introduced to the company’s various departments, the introduction has to be effected by the CEO or equivalent. Indeed, there must be no doubt that the initiative has the complete backing of all Board members. If, however, this is seen as the Director of Marketing’s baby then, given the reputation of most marketing depts, the other parts of the business will adopt it half-heartedly. And, in 12 months time, you’ll be doing the process again.
Steve Farnsworth A.K.A. @Steveology
August 24, 2012
If only one department head or even a small group are the sole actors, you are so right about it failing quickly.
adigaskell
August 31, 2012
Quite right Steve. I worked at a company a few years ago that went through an expensive ‘re-brand’. What that mainly involved was changing the logo and the colours/graphics used in any marketin collateral. It really only scratched the surface, as despite having new ‘brand values’ nothing changed in the way people behaved, nor I dare say in the way we were perceived by customers.
Of course those involved thought they’d done a great job and patted themselves on the back :)
Steve Farnsworth A.K.A. @Steveology
August 31, 2012
Sounds familiar. When your job is branding, then we tend to sit in the corner and make brand mud pies and are quite happy with our work. “Hey, look at my awesome brand mud pie!” I think it is a function of how silos are so easily developed in companies.