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Brand, Enculturated
Once you've completed the Strategic Brand
Assessment and Turning the
Telescope and you have your
Brand Constitution, the next step is to operationalize the brand. That
is, to make it a part of everything you do as a company. Because branding isn't
marketing on steroids. It's a strategic initiative -- no, make that, the
strategic initiative -- that drives customer loyalty, differentiation from your
competitors and market leadership. And to achieve it, everyone needs to
understand his or her role in bringing the brand's promise to life.
Your Brand Culture Is Showing
How you manage your business is how you manage your brand. It cuts across
product/service delivery, distribution, pricing and communications. Because a
great branding campaign isn't anything unless you can deliver on the promise.
(Where would Maytag be if their appliances broke down or Volvo if their cars
were unsafe?)
As your Chief Strategy Officer™, we'll marshall the forces of 'brand
enculturation.' We'll identify and advise you on areas where vision and
execution don't line up. So you can see how the walk and the talk are
incongruent. And where you can make great strides with small steps.
Take Over the Flywheel
Part of our approach is to convene what we call the 'Momentum Group,' a task
force comprised of the CEO, strategy-driven executives, marketing executives
and Brand Savants, who will monitor, measure and initiate branding programs.
We'll look at all the customer touchpoints and watch how they impact the brand:
prior to purchase, during the purchase experience and after the purchase.
No sacred cows here, because every facet of the company is subject to scrutiny:
from sales and operations to customer service to finance and HR. The Momentum
Group will develop a wellspring of ideas for internal teams to incubate and
actualize. Down the road, we'll work on maturing or updating the brand,
expanding the brand franchise and wrestling with brand portfolio management of
subbrands, cobrands and other brand assets.
Captaining Strategy
The Momentum Group will look at things like how brand informs other strategic
priorites, how brand guides market opportunities and even cost-cutting
initiatives. The outcome will be better, more actionable and more compelling
strategy, led by brand. We'll talk a lot about building a brand-based culture
and how to train employees and channel partners first to understand, then to
embrace and finally, to live the brand.
This is also the place of accountability. The group will assume primary
responsibility for shepherding, policing and evangelizing the brand. At least
initially. Hence the name. Because like all great momentum, once the flywheel
is going, it takes on a life of its own, producing its own energy. That's the
goal here: everybody "gets it," not just employees, but your
customers, too.
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