As I boarded the plane at Heathrow six years ago, I felt a cold chill of nervousness. I was on my way to the global headquarters of one of the world’s biggest companies. It had hired me as their lone brand consultant for a major corporate re-branding project.
I would report directly to a man recently hired from an FMCG company to head the re-branding. We spent that first day reviewing his vision.
As the weeks passed and my trips out to company HQ became more frequent, a bold branding plan was developed.
We started with extensive consumer research and then spent weeks analyzing the data. When it came to the positioning stage we kept it very tight and benchmarked everything against our customer insights and our extensive knowledge of competitor perceptions. With the positioning complete we turned our attention to the roll-out of the brand strategy across the organization. On launch day, nine months after our first meeting, my client and I stood shoulder to shoulder and proudly announced the new corporate brand strategy.
And then…nothing happened.
The HR department continued with its existing banal employer brand strategy that promoted honesty, integrity and trustworthiness.
The chief executive went on record saying how important branding was to the company, but remained ignorant of the newly developed brand positioning.
The global sales teams were openly dismissive of the new branding and their all-important sales visits continued to emphasize product features and price. In manufacturing, the R&D teams and designers had no use for the brand strategy and so completely ignored it.
Eighteen months later my client was a dejected and isolated man. His bold brand strategy had failed to have any impact whatsoever. On paper he had a new brand, but in practice the product, employees, service and leadership of the company were completely untouched by it. Like most of the great re-branding sagas of the early 21st century, the end result of millions in investment and execution was fleeting and superficial. Lipstick on a gorilla.
As a consultant I failed the first big global client I ever worked for.
I failed because I did not advise them to do something I have come to see as vital to successful corporate branding: build a brand team. Not a team of marketing people and the ad agency, but a true cross-functional team that draws on senior people from manufacturing, HR, sales and the board of directors. It should include internal heroes who are widely respected and who know how the culture and politics of the firm actually work.
Different egos and interests all collide around the corporate brand and this can make brand development more complex. However, it is better to discover and resolve these divergent views as part of the branding process than have them emerge after the brand has been developed and communicated to key stakeholders.
If you ever find yourself presenting the ‘new’ corporate brand to senior managers, you have already failed. Branding should be an inclusive, engaged process. If senior management feels that they have been consulted and involved in a re-branding, they are more likely to apply the new brand strategy and will embolden the initiative with a credibility often lacking in the marketing department.
In the mythology of the Western there are two different types of hero: the lone gunman (Clint Eastwood) and the posse of good guys (The Magnificent Seven). In branding terms it is the latter which offers the better model for brand-building.
30 SECONDS ON … CORPORATE RE-BRANDING
– Despite notable examples such as Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) and Diageo (caused by the merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan), the vast majority of corporate re-branding initiatives do not involve any change in the name or logo of the corporation.
– Corporate re-branding typically includes extensive market research, followed by a review of brand positioning and brand values, and concludes with a roll-out of the new brand strategy. The cost of re-branding varies from company to company but the bill can often total millions.
– One of the most impressive recent re-branding campaigns has been for US retailer Staples. Its corporate brand has been repositioned around the concept of making life easier and, according to vice president of marketing Shira Goodman, the re-branding worked because of cross-functional co-operation.
The Blake Project Can Help: The Brand Positioning Workshop
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education
