The key to action branding

A presentation by tannistho tannistho@rediffmail.com

What am I talking about

Action branding is a recently used term and it refers to a ‘brand’ as a sum total of all its actions.

In the next few slides we look at some brands who are practising action branding and how they are changing their perception in the

market.

Where does the concept come from?

Action branding is a recently used term. More details about it can be found in:

http://authenticorganizations.com/harquail/2011/03/23/action-branding-using-activity-streams-to-authenticate-identity-claims/

The idea of action branding

Action branding helps personal and organisational brands demonstrate the

character, the values and purpose that they have.

In short, Action Branding can be termed as

Branding

So, what was Branding 1.0 ?

• In Branding 1.0 we have always looked at a product’s brand as a socially constructed fiction.

• Brands were built on top of a product’s material features and attributes, brands were claims that marketers wanted us to believe.

So, how does it change for action branding?

• Times have changed and so have rules. With multiple channels of conversation, several smaller communities coming together, people now expect a brand to transparent, open, direct and delivering on its claims.

• This is where Action Branding enters the arena.

In one word, action branding is about

Taking the traditional idea bulb…

… and adding a shovel to it.

In action branding

You have to imagine your brand at the center of the activity with several activity streams emerging out of it… it is the sum total of activity streams that makes up what your brand is tomorrow…

Brand – organisational/personal

/product

Activity Streams Activity Streams

Activity Streams

So how do you go about action branding

• Put your organisation in the center.

• Ideate and bring out the bigger purpose for your organisation’s existence.

• Create your list of activities that you do as an organisation. These form your activity streams…

• Analyse each task to identify what is their role in the greater organisational purpose.

• Once you have identified their role – create a set of standards that each of these actions need to follow for better alignment with your organisational purpose.

The steps aren’t that easy by the way, but

they have clarity.

Traditionally,

• Branding has been a domain that’s been dominated by one set of guys in most organisations… THE BRAND MANAGERS!

With action branding

The focus changes significantly…

Your activity streams now include several nodes

YOUR IMAGE BEFORE MEDIA

YOUR PURPOSE

YOUR SYSTEMS AND

PROCEDURES

THE ATTITUDE OF YOUR

LEADERSHIP

YOUR PRODUCT FEATURES

&PERFORMANCE YOUR

INTERNAL PROCESSES

YOUR SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

YOUR HIRING STRATEGY

ADVANTAGES OF ACTION BRANDING

One of the biggest advantages of action branding is that you do not need to be reactive of your competitor’s moves anymore…

Action branding ensures that you can stick to your way of working in a proactive way rather than in a reactive way simply by sticking

to your purpose.

However, the critical success factor here is

To find out your purpose as an organisation…

How do you go about finding your organisational purpose?

Rule No. 1:Your organisation was not born to make money. Money is a by-product of what you do as an organisation. So first you need to determine your impact on society – what is it that you want to solve five/ten years down the line. A problem that will disappear when your organisation will come into being.

Rule No. 2:Once you have determined the desired impact you need to have on the society – you need to figure out your way of getting there. This determines your different activity streams.

One way to determine the viability of your activity streams is to conduct a Purpose audit for all your activities.

The big plus of action branding is

It can make a superhero out of your organisation…

Keep up the action!