brand strategy

Jan 16, 2014

Will Your Next Hire Help Your Brand or Hurt Your Brand?

In our day-to-day lives, we have all had memorable moments when we’ve had wonderful, helpful service and also occasions where customer service was so dreadful that we’ve wondered what the company was thinking when they hired this person.

As a marketer, my job is to think strategically and creatively on my clients’ behalf and recommend design, communications and customer experience opportunities to help them build their brands.  So, why am I about to stick my nose into the human resource department?  Because often your human resource team members may be disenfranchised during the branding process even though they’re the people who are hiring and indoctrinating your brand ambassadors.  They’re also the keepers and distributors of your corporate culture and behaviours, essential building blocks of your brand.  Kim Vogel, an experienced strategist says  “When HR is closely partnered with the business it creates consistency of message, produces company alignment and leverages an organization’s people resources to their fullest potential.”

So, how do you include human resources in the branding process?

First… encourage them to hire people whose values mirror your brand values.  Your recruiters are often at the mercy of job descriptions which emphasize credentials ahead of character.  Just because someone has a Fortune 500 company on her resume doesn’t make her a good fit with your culture or brand.

Second… support HR with internal communication that’s as well thought out as your external messaging.  After all, your employees are the ones who have to make your brand come alive on the front lines as they work with your customers.  There’s nothing that can kill a communications campaign faster than lax execution.  Let everyone in your organization know that they have skin in the game when it comes to branding.  And third… encourage dialogue between the people who communicate your brand and the people who deliver the brand experience.  They’re the employees who are closest to your customers.  When they have the tools to excel, so will your brand.

With the recent addition of Kim Vogel to the Spyder Works thought leadership team, look for more posts and blogs on strategic people practices in the near future.

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Category: Culture, Icicle, Spyder Works

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Oct 10, 2012

Does Your Brand Have a Distinctive Voice?

Brand-Voice

As a designer, I confess to a built-in visual bias when it comes to brand expression. I tend to experience a brand’s essence primarily through my eyes, by seeing how it draws me into its world.  And when I’m working with clients on a branding project, one of my first steps is to create a book of strategically selected pictures and graphics that create a feeling of immersion in the character and the unique ‘feel’ of the brand.

The next step though, is just as crucial. It involves the expression of the brand through words.

Most major brands have graphic standards that instruct internal and external communications people about how to maintain the brand’s integrity from a visual perspective. Fewer brands have similar guidelines about what the brand should ‘say’ to stakeholders.

Why is a brand story and a brand vocabulary so important?  Simply because your website, your brochures, your advertising and social media are all opportunities to draw customers into your brand world.  The words you use should reflect who you are and what makes you distinctive.  Take something as elementary as how you describe your customers. Westjet calls them guests.  Augusta National Golf Club, where the Masters Tournament is played, insists on calling them patrons. Most professional firms use the word ‘clients’.

The decision to use those terms is the first step on the way to creating a corporate vocabulary and a corporate story that differentiates and distinguishes. It’s just that most organizations never take the next step and end up sounding like every other organization in their communications.

Given that you have a unique story to tell, when you use the same phrases and thoughts as everyone else to express it, you’ll sound the same as everyone else.  Don’t tell me you’re innovative, tell me why.  Don’t tell me that you value your people, tell me how. Don’t tell me you go the extra mile, take me on the trip with you. As we constantly tell our children… ‘use your words’.

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Category: Branding, Spyder Works

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Jul 23, 2012

DayBreak USA: Ken Tencer Talks Constant Innovation

constant-innovation-retail

Retail strategist at Kurt Salmon, Nancy Liu recently told the Dow Jones News wire that “there’s a dichotomy among retailers.  If your middle class you’re not going to spend freely across stores because you’re concerned about money.  This makes for a more competitive environment for retailers.”

The model remains “how do you best get your goods to the customer?” Retail is not just about the boxes.  Retail is really about making those small transactions and getting your goods into the hands of the customer.   Best Buy has continued to innovate by looking at rebuilding their foot prints while adding new formats for mobile and on the go express kiosks in airport terminals; all attempts to be more convenient and customer friendly.

Retailers need to rethink the retail model and figure out how to get what the customer wants from them where they want it.  Though Amazon is challenging Walmart for leadership in non-grocery retail sales, there are still a lot of items people like to touch, feel and try on.  Bricks and mortar can become smaller and online larger but the brand experience needs to remain consistent across all platforms.  It’s about being willing to constantly innovate in response to consumer trends.  Understand what’s made you successful in the past and translate that message to your online brand.

If you’re worried about being left behind as your competitors engage in constant innovation, listen to my radio interview with Jay Young, DayBreak USA.

For more, read Innovations Aren’t Us and Best Buy in a Small Box.

Jay Young is the host of DayBreak USA, radio’s first national morning magazine show.  For the past 25 years, he has let his voice be heard in radio broadcasts and morning talk shows across the country.

DayBreak USA is a live, fast-paced morning magazine program packed full of interviews, dollars and sense financial information, intelligent insights and positive features.

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Category: Marketing

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