A brand is the sum of all available information about a product, service or company. It is conveyed through a direct experience with the service or product, and through other communication drivers such as advertising, public relations, a name, or logo that company’s use to shape perceptions about their brand. Whether through direct experience, or communication drivers, shareholders, customers, employees and the investment community develop perceptions about a brand and its meaning.
Image Drivers and Brand Reputation
One of the first and most direct points of contact a company has with its customers is through its employees. At each level of an organization, employees have an opportunity to influence the perception of a company’s brand during these critical points of contact. This impression is called brand image, or brand reputation and the impact of this contact will be either positive, or negative or somewhere in between.
A company’s dedicated and able workforce is an important asset in developing customer loyalty. Long-term relationships and customer loyalty are directly related to the level of service and brand image created through daily contact between the company’s customers and its employees. This translates into a competitive advantage for an organization. The value of customer loyalty is not absolutely quantifiable, but according to the Coalition for Brand Equity it costs four to six times as much to win a new customer as it does to retain an old customer. For most companies –no matter what product or service they offer-the major factor in keeping existing customers happy is the service they receive from employees. Whatever their position, employees have two jobs, one is the work they perform, the other is conveying the corporate image. The second job as Ambassadors of the Brand is to communicate the company’s corporate identity to the outside world. For better or for worse, the image of the company employees project to customers is whatever those employees believe that image to be.
Developing Committed Brand Ambassadors
Employees, who serve as strong brand ambassadors, must be integrated into a corporate brand management program. The responsibility of an organization is to develop an effective means for communicating the company’s corporate identity to all employees. The second piece of the effort is to ensure that employees effectively communicate the brand image to customers.
To create a strong network of employee ambassadors, a company must establish a communication component involving both employee education and feedback mechanisms that include employees in decision-making and engender a sense of brand ownership. Only when employees understand their roles as brand ambassadors, and receive recognition and reward for their roles, can they be integrated successfully into a corporate image program.
Most major corporations have programs and structures to communicate their key positioning and brand messages associated with their brand. This effort helps to mold a corporate culture that can successfully articulate and execute on a brand’s promise. Corporate culture is the image and perception developed through a company’s internal communication. Corporate communication programs shape how employees present the company to the world at large, and whether they will be ambassadors of commitment or indifference.
Building a Brand Infrastructure
There are many ways a company can build a corporate infrastructure that supports the role of employees as brand ambassadors. A successful infrastructure can be achieved by
• Integrating the corporate brand strategy into the company’s overall communication strategy to employees
• Developing a set of brand principals that survive change
• Incorporating and articulating the historical perspective that has made the company great
• Instilling the philosophy of employees as caretakers of eternal brand assets
• Imbuing the qualities and principles that constitute the brand into the corporate culture
• Understanding and communicating the company’s customer profile
• Gathering employee opinions
• Projecting a clear focused image
• Providing strong feedback mechanisms
• Involving employees by defining, recognizing and rewarding their roles as brand managers
• Ensuring that employees who are to embody the image fully understand it, fully accept it and fully feel that they have a role in making it happen.
Major companies realize that strong brands cannot be built without the ongoing support and management by employees. They are critical to its success. Programs must be put in place to make it happen. There is no other way!
