Living The Brand

Living the Brand:Aligning your internal and external brands

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“Living the Brand: Aligning your external and internal brands” 2

Every year, the top 100 global brands are

ranked on their brand equity by

Interbrand, a leader in the global

branding field. In the latest ranking

(2007), Coca Cola tops the list with

Microsoft, IBM, GE, and Nokia,

respectively. These rankings should not

be a surprise because these brands are on

top of mind across the globe. What is

surprising, however, is that the

combined the brand equity of the top 5

global brands (266.1 Billion dollars1) is

higher than the Gross Domestic Product

of 84 respective countries.2 After

looking at the big picture, one can truly

appreciate the magnitude of value that

relies on branding.

Since its inception in the 1990‟s, the idea

of branding has spread like wildfire.

Companies became increasingly

concerned with their externally focused

on their reputation with customers, and

the need for brand centric strategies was

born. This brand centered ideology soon

pressured advertising agencies and

marketing firms to re-position

themselves as “branding” firms to avoid

losing business. “Branding” firms

popped up overnight; each with their

own claim to fame and “trademark”

branding process.

Now it is almost 20 years later and we

still do not have the exact definition of

branding. We also have a number of

charlatan “branding” firms that

propagate nothing more than integrated

marketing communications as

“branding”. And with the fate companies

resting on the strength on its‟ brand, I

question how one can ensure that its‟

1 Interbrand. “Top 10 Global Brands.” http://www.interbrand.com/best_brands_2007.asp 2 World Economic Forum. “GDP per country: 2007”

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2007/02/weodata/download.aspx

branding programs are being executed

correctly? In other words, how can a

company ensure that it is acting true to

its brand?

To answer this question we must first

understand how the state of branding has

evolved. In 2000, branding took a unique

turn, towards an internal perspective.

Marketers started applying the tools

previously used to promote the external

brand to consumers, towards attracting

and retaining talent for organizations.

This hybrid of external branding and

talent acquisition was coined “internal

branding,” and it combined equal parts

of marketing and advertising with

corporate recruiting. As author Dale

Buss states in his article In Good

Company, “The aim is two-fold: to

attract the most promising new recruits

and make sure that existing employees

understand the company‟s goals and

commitment to them. The best efforts

also motivate employees in their

approach to their jobs.”3 What is

interesting is that the branding evolution

created a unique dynamic between the

two branding approaches; external

consumer branding focused on making

brand promises to consumers while

internal corporate branding focused on

attracting and retaining talent to fulfill

those brand promises. As Jessica

Bobula, in her article on B2B branding

puts it, [internal branding] has become

“the delivery of mechanism for your

external brand.”4 As that delivery

mechanism, it is imperative that your

internal branding messages are in sync

with your external branding messages.

3 Buss, Dale: “In Good Company.” Brandweek; May 2002. 43,20 Pg.28-34 4 Bobula, Jessica. “Internal Branding becoming a Hot Topic

for B-to-B.” B to B. Chicago. Sept. 12 2005. Vol. 90 Iss.11 Pg 6.

http://www.interbrand.com/best_brands_2007.asp




So how important is a corporation‟s

internal brand? In the article, Internal

Branding: Branding from the Inside Out

Nader Tavassoli states, “In too many

organizations, branding remains an

externally facing communications

exercise…sadly most employees do not

even know or understand their

company‟s strategy. It should thus be no

surprise that they fail to deliver the

brand promise to customers.”5 In

today‟s fickle marketplace where brand

loyalty is key to future growth,

companies may only get one shot at a

potential lifelong customer. Companies

that fail to deliver brand promises can

lead to failed brands.

If your brand promotes simplicity, but a

customer has to talk to five different

people to address their need, then your

customers experience a discrepancy

between what you promise and what you

actually deliver. This discrepancy

creates consumer disillusionment. As

Dale Buss, author of In Good Company

states, “When a prospect calls in, if you

are saying one thing and your employees

are doing something totally different, the

whole brand is proven to be a lie. So

they have to believe it and have to act on

it.”6 Furthermore, “Many surveys have

found that brand loyalty is directly

linked to perceived treatment by

company representatives.”7 But paying

a little extra for a great customer service

team does not secure brand equity.

Customer service is but a sliver of your

work force. If you want to build brand

equity you must leverage internal

5 Tavassoli, Nader. “Internal Branding: Branding from the

Inside Out.” Brand Strategy. (Jul 2007): 40. 6 Buss, Dale: “In Good Company.” Brandweek; May 2002.

43,20 Pg.28-34 7 Anonymous. “Getting it right on the inside.” Strategic Direction. Oct 2003 19,10, pg 10.

branding to get employees in every

department to live the brand.

How do you motivate employees to “live

the brand?” It starts with bringing in the

right people. Apple computers, for

example, has a brand that revolves

around innovation. Its products are

consistently evolving and pushing

technological boundaries. How does

Apple do it? They actively recruit

change agents; people who are anti-

status quo. Apple does not point a finger

at an employee and say “innovate”

because it does not have to, the

employees are already looking around

for opportunities due to their pre-

disposition to improvement. Apple does

not hire employees who just value

technology or design, they hire people

who crave change and therefore have the

characteristics to live their external

brand. As Rick Jacobs states in his

article Turn Employees into Brand

Ambassadors, “Aligning the brand on

the inside is more important in many

ways than marketing the brand on the

outside…your core business is replicable

by competitors; the only thing not

reproducible is the people who make up

the organization‟s personality and,

therefore create the competitive

“Aligning the brand

on the inside is more

important in many

ways than marketing

the brand on the

outside…”


advantage.”8 With the technology of

today that increases the turnaround time

of copycat competitors, the idea of

viewing employees as human assets is

imperative to the future success of a

brand.

In my opinion, internal branding or

“living the brand,” transcends talent

acquisition; it must incorporate company

culture and strategic business processes.

Wal-Mart‟s brand, for example,

positions itself as a low-cost leader.

Although Wal-Mart‟s cost leadership

strategy is a result of its leverage against

suppliers, its success is more of a result

of the cost management culture Sam

Walton instilled within the organization.

Employees are cross-trained, distribution

is streamlined, management refuses to

fly first class, and their corporate

headquarters is a modest building in

Bentonville Arkansas. The culture‟s

mantra of “Every Day Low Prices” was

embedded in all employees, ultimately

influencing processes that fulfill this

promise to consumers. In his business

case, Wal-Mart Stores: Every Day Low

Prices in China, Ali Farhoomand states,

“It was Wal-Mart‟s credibility in

keeping this promise that had drew

millions of customers to its door”9.

When businesses empower employees to

deliver repeatable positive brand

experiences, businesses are delivered

repeat customers.

So how does “Living the brand”

translate externally?, In his article

Insider Branding author Sean Lewis

8 Jacobs, Rick. “Turn Employees into Brand Ambassadors.”

ABA Bank Marketing. Apr 2003. 35,3, Pg 23-26. 9 Farhoomand, Ali. “Wal-Mart Stores: „Every Day Low

Prices‟ in China.” Asia Case Research Centre; The

University of Hong Kong. Poon Kam Kai Series: HKU590. 2006.

states, “…it is important that there is an

understanding of the brand and that

every department has pride in it.

Otherwise there is a danger that

companies cannot deliver on the

promises they make in advertising.

Insincere loyalty messages, irritating

hold messages, complicated pricing or

bad customer service can all result from

applying the brand only at the surface

level.”10

So what is the impact of

aligning your internal and external brand

on your bottom line? Rod Gapp and Bill

Merrilees of Brand Management state,

“…up to 40 per cent of the marketing

investment is said to be lost when

employees do not deliver on the

organization‟s promises to clients. To

this end, when employees understand

and accept that the values are genuine,

they align their attitudes and behavior to

the brand values, which results in greater

satisfaction for both customer preference

and loyalty.”11

To put that into

perspective, in 2006 Wal-Mart spent

$570 million dollars in advertising.12

If

10 Lewis, Sean. “Insider Branding.” Marketing. London.

Nov 2005 Pg 32. 11 Gapp, Rod and Merrilees, Bill. “Important factors to consider when using internal branding as a management

strategy: A healthcare case study.” Brand Management.

Sep-Nov 2006. Vol 14 Nos. 1/2 Pg 162-176. 12 Helm, Burt. “Wanna Be Wal-Mart‟s Ad Man?.”

BusinessWeekonline:http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/

dnflash/content/sep2006/db20060918_842724.htm. Sept 19, 2006.

“…up to 40 percent of

the marketing

investment is said to be

lost when employees

do not deliver on the

organization‟s promises

to clients…”

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/sep2006/db20060918_842724.htm




Gapp and Merrilee‟s estimation holds

true, Wal-Mart would have wasted $228

million dollars if their internal and

external brands were not aligned.

Another metric to look at is ROIPA, or

“Return On Internal People

Alignment.”13

In an article on internal

branding, Nader Tavassoli states,

“Marketers generally only look in one

place to see evidence of returns on

investments for the brand- the top line in

terms of sales volumes and price

premiums. ROIPA, however has some

more direct returns for smart marketing

directors…For starters, HR can track

changes in current metrics such as the

number of qualified applicants, job-

offers accepted, absenteeism and

retention of talent.”14

Although the

talent acquisition and retention side of

internal branding is more Human

Resources focused, the metrics that

define success can reflect the external

status of the brand and the bottom line.

In a survey of 2000 people in UK

regarding job satisfaction, Centaur

Communications measured the amount

of pride respondents had in their

respective companies. They discovered

that “Increasing pride by just one per

cent would increase employee

recommendations of the organization by

.83%, increase extra effort by .76%,

increase recommendations of products

and services by .71%, and would reduce

people actively looking for a job

elsewhere by .46%.”15

From a marketing

standpoint, this study provides a link

between employee pride and employee

13 Tavassoli, Nader. “Internal Branding: Branding from the

Inside Out.” Brand Strategy. (Jul 2007): 40. 14 Tavassoli, Nader. “Internal Branding: Branding from the

Inside Out.” Brand Strategy. (Jul 2007): 40. 15 Centaur Communications. “Internal Branding: Taking Pride in your Work.” Brand Strategy. (Mar 2007): 44.

recommendations of a brand. By

aligning external and internal brands,

companies can increase employee pride

in the company. In essence, by creating

brand alignment you are achieving the

ultimate goal in branding; an army of

employee brand ambassadors.

So how does one align external and

internal brands? If you ask 50 different

marketers, chances are you will get 50

different responses. Acknowledging this

aspect, I set out in my research not to

deliver a “cover-all” approach, but to

read between the lines of various

opinions. Doing so, I uncovered the

following 4 themes: Get Top

Management to Walk the Talk, Start

with What You Know and Where You

Want to Go, Convert Brand Values into

Behaviors to Empower Employees and

finally Field the Right Team.

1.) Get Top Management to Walk the

Talk

The number one priority in any brand

alignment is to get top management to

buy into the branding process. This is

not a surprise because research has

shown that getting top management buy-

in is the key to success of change within

an organization. As Alan Mitchell

writes in Marketing Week, “Failure [of

internal branding programs] has many

causes. Often the organizations leaders

simply fail to walk the talk.”16

Kai F.

Mahnert and Ann M. Torres, authors of

The Brand Inside: The Factors of

Failure and Success in Internal

Branding also agree, “In order to be

regarded as legitimate by the target

audience, management has to lend its

support to the program, as well as visibly

adhere to it…responsibility for the

16 Mitchell, Alan. “Getting staff to live the brand: work in process.” Marketing Week. London: Sep 2, 2004. Pg 30.


internal branding effort should lie with

the CEO.”17

If a company‟s CEO is not

living the brand, employees will become

disengaged from the brand alignment

process.

2.) Start with What You Know and

Where you Want to Go

Ask the CEO what he/she currently

thinks about the brand. Then ask the

employees what their opinion is of the

brand. Finally, survey the customers.

Ask the customers about their

expectations of the brand. If all three

groups match in their opinions on the

brand, your external and internal brands

are aligned and the brand should be

purely maintained. If there is a

discrepancy between what customers

think and what management wants them

to think, or if management wants their

brand to evolve, then your task to align

your external and internal brand begins.

So how does one audit their brand?

According to Kim Lacina of Versant, a

Milwaukee based internal/external

branding firm, you start with asking top

management about its “brand

aspirations.” Versant calls this their

“Brand Discover” step and it involves an

unusual game of word associations.

Lacina explained that sometimes Versant

asks CEO‟s, “if your company/brand

were a car or animal, what kind of car or

animal would it be.”18

These

associations are then compared to

employee responses and the gaps, if any,

are explored and researched to create the

“Brand Voice”, a list of brand

descriptors that guide the creative

17 Mahnert, Kai F. and Torres, Ann M. “The Brand Inside: The Factors of Failure and Success in Internal Branding.”

Irish Marketing Review. (2007) 19,1/2 Pg.54-61 18 Interview: Kim Lacina, Account Executive, Versant Solutions. Mar 20th, 2008.

execution of external and internal

marketing materials.19

3.) Convert Brand Values into Behaviors

to Empower Employees

Branding programs often have the

internal stigma within organizations of

being merely “touchy feely” initiatives

that hold no more inspirational posters.

To inspire employees to actually live the

brand, you must first empower them.

Give them a checklist of behaviors that

are “on-brand” just as you would during

a performance review. Alan Mitchell in

an article from Marketing Week states,

“…the real challenge is not so much to

change staff attitudes and behaviors, but

processes. But what have processes to

do with brand values? Simple. To be

meaningful, even the vaguest of brand

values such as „helpful‟, „friendly‟ or

„fun‟ must be translated into real-life

experiences.”20

Translating these brand values is not as

difficult as you might imagine. Nancy

Woltzen, Vice President of Versant,

spoke directly on this subject. She stated

that she would often use role-playing in

teaching executives how to correctly

„Live the Brand‟. Reoccurring problems

within an organization would be

rehearsed in role-playing sessions.

Nancy would ask each executive to solve

the problem in real-time as she or

another Versant employee would act as

customer. When the executives would

demonstrate behaviors “off-brand” she

would have them re-visit the brand

values and guide them in changing their

behavior accordingly.21

19 Interview: Kim Lacina, Account Executive, Versant

Solutions. Mar 20th, 2008. 20 Mitchell, Alan. “Getting staff to live the brand: work in

process.” Marketing Week. London: Sep 2, 2004. Pg 30. 21 Interview: Nancy Woltzen, Vice President, Versantworks inc.. Apr 18th, 2008.


Another way of educating employees on

how to live the brand is learned from the

case of Citizens Bank. Lawrence Fish,

Chairman and CEO of Citizens Financial

Group, in an effort to position Citizens

Bank for future expansion knew he

needed to get all of his work force

behaving consistently; towards the

community, customers and each other.

This credo was not to be mistaken for

one or two sentence mantra that many

organizations utilize. Instead, it

consisted of specific key behaviors. For

example, the „Customers‟ section held

the following: “Hug the customer.

Smile. Say thank you. Return phone

calls and e-mails in a timely manner. Do

whatever you can every day, in every

way, to provide world-class

service…Give customers a reason to say,

„Wow, I love these people.”22

To

support and promote these behaviors,

Citizens sent out monthly newsletters of

real-life stories of employees that

embodied the credo in specific events

called “Credo Moments.” Many

branding programs fail because

companies tend to allow the initial

momentum of change to dissipate by not

constantly monitoring progress.

As Colin Mitchell states in his Harvard

Business Review article Selling the

Brand Inside, “The messages should be

directed at employee “touch points”, the

day to day interactions that influence the

way people experience the

workplace…By incorporating the brand

vision into these employee touch points,

companies over time inculcate the vision

into employee experience to the extent

22 Lal, Rajiv and Arar Han. Citizens Bank. Harvard Business Review. Jan. 2005. Pg 2-3.

that on-brand behavior becomes

instinctive.”23

4.) Field the Right Team

This is the most crucial aspect of any

brand alignment; the human assets.

Creating a laundry list of desired brand

behaviors is one thing, but having a

workforce that had the abilities and

desire to emulate the brand is another.

Evaluating the fit between the brand and

the current culture is imperative to any

brand alignment program. As Mahnert

and Torres state, “The cultural fit

analysis is essential in the identification

of discrepancies between the values of

the program and the values expressed

through the organizational culture.”24

Simply put, if an organization‟s culture

is not fully supporting its external brand,

it will have to evolve. Since most

corporations hire employees based on

their “fit” within the organizational

culture, companies will experience some

attrition as employees who cannot adapt

to the new culture or new internal brand

will leave. When asked about how

companies identify those employees who

aren‟t “on-brand”, Nancy Woltzen of

Versant stated that companies don‟t have

to, those employees do it for them by

leaving.25

For those employees that

remain but are unsure about the new

strategic direction, authors Mahnert and

Torres state that even, “„loose canons‟

who are committed to goals but lack

understanding can be converted into

brand champions.” As for future talent

acquisition,“…build the brand promise

into the recruitment and selection

process so that only the most suitable

23 Mitchell, Colin. “Selling the Brand Inside.” Harvard

Business Review R0201J (Jan 2002):5-11 24 Mahnert, Kai F. and Torres, Ann M. “The Brand Inside: The Factors of Failure and Success in Internal Branding.”

Irish Marketing Review. (2007) 19,1/2 Pg.54-61 25 Interview: Nancy Woltzen, Vice President, Versant. Apr 18th, 2008.


candidates are selected and high

performance can be encouraged.”26

Hiring individuals who are pre-disposed

to the brand values of a company will

deliver consistent “on brand” behavior.

Debriefing

This idea of external and internal brand

alignment may not work for every

corporation. I don‟t think Marlboro

employees have to ride horses to work

for the Marlboro brand to survive. Nor

do I expect Red Bull employees to drink

enough caffeine in a day to power a

small city. But for corporations like

Wal-Mart and Starbucks, who are in

industries with heavy customer

interaction, their employees become part

of their brand by creating the customer

experience. Hence, brand equity, the

global measure of brand strength, rests

squarely on the shoulders of employees.

Acknowledging that employees can add

value to a brand creates my opinion that

brand alignment is more necessity than

wishful thinking in certain industries.

So, to answer the question on how

companies can act true to their brands, I

believe John R. Childress author of A

Time for Leadership: Global

Perspectives from an Accelerated

Market Place, sums it up best with,

“When brand expectations and culture

clash, the effects can devastate a

business. When brand and culture match,

the effects can devastate the

competition.”27

26 Anonymous. “Getting it right on the inside.” Strategic Direction. Oct 2003 19,10, pg 10. 27 Childress, John R. A Time for Leadership: Global

Perspectives from an Accelerated Market Place. Los Angeles, New York: Leadership Press. Jun 200. Pg 103-124

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