Your Brand is Your Reputation
Published by: Irish Marketing Journal
By: David O’Connor, Managing Partner The Brand Union Dublin
When it comes to rebranding, for whatever reasons, there are a number of key issues that need to be prioritised. Get them wrong and you run the risk of failure, writes David O’Connor in Irish Marketing Journal.
There has never been a more critical time for businesses to align and position their brand in a relevant and compelling manner. Increased competition, a changing economic environment, restructure, mergers and acquisition all signal a change to the marketplace and require an aligned brand experience.
For many businesses this attention to brand is a new phenomenon and some are struggling with it. Specifically with the concept of ‘brand’, the understanding of ‘value beyond price’, brand differentiation and the increasing commoditisation of their sector.
Rebranding may provide a solution to these problems. But this decision should not be made lightly, which is why many businesses engage branding professionals, not just to rebrand but to facilitate a decision on rebranding; to evaluate the bottom line benefit before committing the business to invest in what many believe to be a marketing only exercise.
There are many issues facing businesses in the context of rebranding, not least a common misunderstanding of the role that brand can play. Brand to many is an output of communication planning and solely the responsibility of the marketing department. Until businesses integrate brand and business at board level, branding will only provide superficial relief to a deeper problem.
Brand, as opposed to identity, is the perception a customer has about a business or product. It is the sum of the experiences, direct or indirect, passive or active that a customer has. Experience brings meaning to identity. Experience builds reputation. Brand is reputation.
So when rebranding, here are four central issues that need to be considered:
1. Align your business and your brand strategy:
Whilst business strategy defines a vision and a mission it doesn’t always define how a customer should regard the business, in other words the kind of reputation it needs to achieve its mission.
More enlightened businesses are moving their brand from being an element of their communication strategy to becoming a central organising principle that drives performance, culture, experience, action and value. They do this by aligning a key customer insight with a promise to the market and then mobilising and motivating every department around that promise in a planned strategic way. In doing so, managing reputation becomes the mandate for every department and every employee. In this way, brand lives at board level and delivers bottom line results.
There are many examples of this in the marketplace today. Volvo would not have achieved a reputation for safety and reliability without aligning R&D, procurement and manufacturing in the process. Every single employee at Tesco knows what ‘Every little helps’ means to the business, to them and to the customer. Ikea have not risen to the heights they have without aligning everyone to ‘create a better everyday life’.
Defining what they want to be known for from the outset and aligning all business activities to that, integrates brand with business strategy in a way that is powerful and differentiating for the customer.
2. Align your stakeholders:
Business is personal and many people will have opinion and influence on the outcome of any rebranding process. It is important to map all stakeholders from the outset and plan to what degree they need to be involved in the process and why.
Rebrand for many will mean change and people are innately resistant to change. Merger and acquisition is a familiar catalyst for rebrand which can be latent with emotion. Keeping stakeholders involved from early on is important to avoid the programme becoming a battleground.
3. Align visual change to the degree of desired perception change:
The extent to which a business changes its identity should reflect the degree they want their customers’ perceptions to change. Whatever route you take, be that refresh, evolution or revolution, change should be communicated clearly. To the general public a logo change means management change and therefore service level change. This could have a negative impact if not communicated correctly.
4. Align your people:
With the business strategy aligned, your people need to be aligned also. Brands promise and people deliver. It is that simple. You can imagine the mood at the Avis desk if a customer has to wait too long or if the car is not ready on time. “Try harder buddy”. For the rep to avoid such derision, the computer system needs to be working, the valet needs to be scheduled and efficient, the cars need to be distributed to meet the demand and so on.
In summary, there are many issues a business may face when rebranding. Understanding the opportunity of aligning brand strategy to business strategy is the first and most important step to successful rebranding. Without this it will just be a badging exercise. If you are thinking of rebranding but will be unable to back it up with evidence and proper tangibles that benefit your customers, then maybe think again?