Internal Branding: Often Overlooked, Yet Critical for Growth
by Rich Wolford
Richmond, Va. - October 2, 2005 - Many companies are serious about branding. They conduct research studies, create or improve products, design new identities and launch marketing campaigns-executing them all brilliantly. Yet many of them will be surprised when they don't get the expected results. Where did they fail? Probably at the point where the customer meets the fulfillment of the brand promise: the purchase or service experience.
Take for example European clothing retailer, C&A, who broadcast flashy, trendy ads that touted a unique identity. In reality, their poorly designed stores full of uninspired, low quality clothes earned them the nickname, "Cheap & Awful." They closed hundreds of stores due to poor sales.
Brand is more than image, it is identity, and that identity is formed within the company by every employee. To build a successful brand, you must pay as much attention to internal branding as external branding by ensuring that each employee is fulfilling the brand's promise. It will not, however, succeed as a top-down program of behavior enforcement. Effective internal branding creates a culture that teaches, reinforces, and rewards brand-appropriate behavior at all levels and across all departments within the company.
Five most important elements of internal branding:
- Leadership - Senior management must strongly support the campaign and visibly include the brand values in management practices. The campaign must not be viewed as a marketing effort.
- Human Resources - In order to influence behavior, you must incorporate brand values into the actions and duties of employees. HR practices must include brand values in performance evaluations, training and recruitment.
- Communications - You must integrate brand values into internal communications and make it real by sharing brand success stories.
- Commitment - Internal branding is an ongoing, long term effort. It cannot end with launch communications that are used one time, never presented again nor introduced to new employees. Rather it should be sustained through communication, reinforcement, rewards and training.
- Measurement - Success of the brand initiative must have measurable goals. Divisions, departments and employees must understand those goals and must receive feedback on achievement of goals as well as efforts requiring improvement.
Southwest Airlines is the perfect example of a successful company that "lives" the brand from senior management to ticket counter attendants. Its identity as low cost, irreverent and friendly is reinforced by its corporate culture. The culture starts at the top where Chairman Herb Kelleher has been known to dress like Elvis, ride a Harley Davidson painted in Southwest colors and arm wrestle competitors' CEOs. However, Southwest's commitment to internal branding goes much deeper than its fun façade and stresses excellent customer service.
Southwest incorporates brand identity into training and hiring practices. For example, the hiring process includes a presentation to a group of other applicants aimed at learning not only how well the presenter does, but also how the audience members respond to others. The extensive training program, named the University of People, provides programs for all levels of the company and uses interactive training where employees learn by working with each other, not just listening to the instructor. Southwest is so confident of its training programs that it seldom seeks new employees with airline experience. It believes it can take smart, customer-oriented people and turn them into airline employees.
The success of Southwest's internal branding strategy is evident to anyone who has experienced their witty, casual flight attendants and pilots and benefited from their efficient service and low fares. That branding success is a critical factor in Southwest's ongoing financial success in an industry plagued with bankruptcies and mergers.
About the Author
Rich Wolford is a Managing Director at BrandSync in the Washington, DC area office. He can be reached at (703) 455-4512.
ABOUT: Since its founding in 1999, BrandSync has been a pioneer in the concept of Strategic Branding. BrandSync is a consulting firm that specializes in synchronizing operations and communications with a powerful and focused brand identity to help Fortune 1000 corporations and middle market companies and their private equity stakeholders achieve their corporate growth objectives. Additional information on the value of Strategic Branding can be found on the web at www.brandsync.com or by calling (804) 545-6880.
