If you are the manager or marketer of a brand, especially of
an organization-level brand, you need to know how to speak the language of
organization’s leadership team. Here are
some hints on how to do that.
First, you should think of the brand’s marketing plan as a
request for a certain amount of resources for a specific return on that
investment. For instance, if you spend $X million building and promoting this
brand, its market share will increase by Y% and its sales will increase by $Z.
When thinking through any recommendation, consider how it
will play with each organization function. How will it help them? In what ways
might it be misunderstood by them or even be a threat to them?
Know that senior managers manage by the achievement against
specific objectives. The more you can quantify what you will achieve with the
brand the better.
It is very useful to get a key brand metric to be included
in a balanced organization scorecard. Brand
awareness, brand preference, market share, share of wallet and attitudinal
loyalty are all candidates for this.
Enlist the CEO as the chief brand advocate. Help the CEO to
understand that the organization brand’s promise is not that different from the
organization’s mission, vision and values, except that it delivers the added
benefit of relevant differentiation. Ask permission to insert brand-related
messages into the CEO’s speeches, fireside chats and other communications. The
CEO can use the brand as the platform to align his or her leadership team and
then rally all of the employees around his or her vision.
Help the CFO to understand that the brand is an asset, an
asset that adds tremendous value to the organization’s reputation, stock price
and total valuation. Assets need to be managed so that they grow, not shrink.
There are several ways to appeal to the HR vice president.
The linkage between brand archetype/values/personality and corporate culture is
strong. A brand can only deliver on its promise if the organization is designed
to deliver on that promise. The HR and marketing functions are similar in two
ways: (1) they both deal with very important organization assets that have a
touchy/feely non-quantitative human side to them that not everyone else in the
organization understands and (2) they are often the first functions that
receive budget cuts during financially troubled times despite their importance
to the organization. And the external brand promise and the employer brand
promise must have some congruence. They are dependent on one another. Finally,
one of the primary benefits of a strong brand is that it helps an organization
attract, hire and retain talented employees.
The vice president of operations may not understand the
importance of the brand or of marketing in general. That is why it is very
important to include him or her in all of the brand strategy formulation
discussions so that he or she has a better understand of and buy-in to key
brand strategy and investment decisions. It is also important to understand how
certain brand actions might create conflicts with or difficulties for
operations including increasing complexity or costs.
The chief information or technology officer will need to understand how the company's computer systems and other technology either enhance or detract from the brand's promise. It is important that this person understands how the brand's promise is a key part of the organization's success formula. If he or she does not understand this, projects that can impact the brand might be assigned much lower priorities.
The sales vice president will be better able to sell the
brand through his or her organization if the brand’s elevator speech is built
into selling scripts. It is useful to include input from salespeople in the
crafting of that elevator speech. They know what helps sell a brand.
The general counsel typically understands the importance of
protecting the brand legally so that its equity is not diluted. You should work
with people in his or her department to insure that the brand is being legally
protected, preferably proactively.
The most important thing is to involve the entire leadership
team in the crafting of the brand’s strategy and positioning. We offer
consensus-building brand positioning and brand architecture workshops for this
purpose.
Finally, you should always consider how your actions will be
perceived by people responsible for the organization’s different functions. Put
yourself in each executive’s shoes. What will his or her concerns be regarding
your proposals? Think though how you can address those concerns. And how can
you speak their language and show them that your proposals can help them and
their organizations? Finally, don’t do this alone. Enlist each of these people
as a mentor or informal advisor to your process. People like to be heard and
they often like to serve as mentors. And never forget that people’s egos need
nourishment every once in awhile.
