Tag: message

Identity, Message, Presentation – 3 Levels of Branding

Interesting post over at StickyFigure. Even if it’s discussing the topic of “department branding” the three bullets that mention 3 potential levels of “branding” that might occur are generally acceptable when talking about branding:

  1.   Presentation (basic look/feel) – this is less a true branding exercise, than an attempt to arrive at consistent visual standards. Often, this will involve a logo of some sort, and some graphical/color standards that are designed and enforced in all production (e.g., a stylized T&D with a red and grey scheme).
  2.   Message and Presentation – this includes the above, plus the addition of some sort of defining and aspirational message that truly represents the aim of the group.
  3.   Identity, Message, and Presentation – this involves a more thoughtful process of seeking to articulate the value, culture, outlook, and goals of the department, now and for the future, and crystallizing this in clear summary statements and messages. In this case, an exercise of “brand-storming” precedes development of messages and presentation element, since those are the outflow of identity definition.

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Posted on by Daniel 1

Advertising vs. Branding

Excellent article in current edition of Business Week, by Marc Gobé, the Chairman and CEO of Desgrippes Gobé New York, a brand design firm and the author of Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People and just released Brandjam: Humanizing Brands Through Emotional Design.

The conclusion of the article tells it all: It’s time to remember that advertising needs brands more than the brands need advertising. A good product creates its own relationships.

Understanding what the consumers want and bringing solutions that will inspire them is the most powerful way to support any business strategy. Putting consumers and the product at the center of the equation is fundamental to a brand’s success. Design then becomes the message and the advertising, as it’s proof of a company’s commitment to people and to innovation.
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Posted on by Daniel 1

Consistency – The Most Important Aspect of Sucessful Branding

Consistency is considered to be the most important aspect of a succesful branding by branding experts and industry opinion leaders questioned in a an Interbrand’s survey made pubilc late January this year.

The experts cited understanding of Customer/Target frequently. This mirrors the finding in this report that metrics and brand research are key tools. Communication and Creative effectiveness were also frequently mentioned as critical aspects of successful branding.

These open-ended responses provide a useful counterpoint to the other findings in this report. They reflect the classic tenets of branding and marketing, which are focused on knowing the customer, maintaining a consistent brand in the marketplace, and delivering winning content and creative.

study says.

Here is the list of the top 10 aspects of successful branding, as resulted from the study:

  1. Consistency (36.0%)
  2. Understanding of Customer/Target (18.2%)
  3. Message/Communication (14.7%)
  4. Creative/Design/Brand ID (12.8%)
  5. Relevance (12.4%)
  6. Differentiation/Uniqueness (12.0%)
  7. Key Stakeholder Buy-In (10.9%)
  8. Positioning (9.7%)
  9. Clarity (8.9%)
  10. Connection to Customer/Target (8.9%)

Read the study here.

Posted on by Daniel 1

Re-Branding and Employees Engagement

Continuing the engagement of the employees in internal branding, October issue of HRMagazin is running an extensive material on internal branding and its importance for the success of any re-branding efforts .

As the people who deliver the brand promise are employees, making sure they understand and can deliver the brand to customers is vital—especially for companies within the service industry, where the relationship between employees and customers essentially is the product the company sells.

Re-branding takes time. The planning process that produces a new brand can take as long as two years. Educating employees about the new brand, and its implications on the company and their work, can also last years. That effort typically starts several weeks to several months before the new brand is unveiled to customers and continues after the official unveiling to external audiences.

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Posted on by Daniel 2

Employees Branding Guidelines

The brand-developing process centers on the messages the organization sends and the processing of those messages in its employees’psyches.

Employee branding is a process by which employees internalize the desired bran dimage and are motivated to project the image to customers and other organizational constituents. The messages employees take in and process influence

  • the extent to which they perceive their psychological contracts with the organization to be fulfilled
  • the degree to which they understand and are motivated to deliver the desired level of customer service

In so doing, they drive the formation of the employee brand. The messages employees receive must be aligned with the employees’organizational experiences if the psychological contract is to be upheld. Therefore, the conscious development of organizational messages is the fundamental building block in this process.

The messages must then be delivered through appropriate message sources.The following guidelines provide a starting point in this process:

  1. Organizational messages should be carefully thought out and planned in much the same way mission and vision statements are thought out and planned.
  2. The organizational messages should reflect the organization’s mission and values.
  3. Messages directed toward external constituencies must be in line with the messages sent to employees.
  4. Messages directed toward external constituencies should be sent internally as well.
  5. The design of recruitment and selection systems should incorporate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.
  6. The compensation system should incorporate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image. For instance, managers in organizations that value training must be held accountable when they fail to train and develop their employees.
  7. Training and development systems should help managers and employees internalize their organization’s mission and values and help them understand how the mission and values pertain to their roles in their organization.This should enable them to more effectively articulate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.
  8. Advertising and public relations systems should communicate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.
  9. Managers should be taught the importance of communicating messages that are consistent with their organization’s mission,vision, policies, and practices.
  10. Performance management systems should address inconsistencies between practices and policies to minimize violations of employees’ psychological contracts.
  11. Accurate and specific job previews should be given to new employees so that realistic expectations are incorporated into their psychological contracts.
  12. Corporate culture (artifacts, patterns of behavior, management norms, values and beliefs, and assumptions) should reinforce the messages employees receive.
  13. Individual output should be measured and analyzed to determine if there are message-related problems at the departmental, divisional, or organizational levels.
  14. Individual messages should be continually examined for consistency with other messages.
  15. Message channels should be examined to ensure consistency of message delivery.
  16. In the event that messages need to be changed or psychological contracts altered, organizations must take careful steps in rewriting the messages.
  17. Measures should be used to assess outcomes such as customer retention, service quality, turnover, and employee satisfaction and performance
Posted on by Daniel