It has always been a myopic notion that branding is the sole responsiblity of the Marketing Department. Building a strong brand starts with a branded mindset of the people making up the organization. With a branded mindset, people become advocates of the brand they work with and work for. They become the living, talking, blogging and influencing personalities of the brand.
In Business World 2.0, not invovling everyone in branding is just like promoting your brand in smoke signals. You burn them all, but you don’t put the right message across. Engaging and encouraging your employees to your brand thrust is one of the best ways in reaching more audience, influencing more circles and gathering more followers.
Visit http://www.brandchannel.com/brand_speak.asp and read more on employee brand engagement in William Arruda’s “Employees are the Brand”
Yes, chief. Branding does not begin and end as a marketing exercise on value perception and image building. That is why CSR efforts, employee brand, along with protection of online buzz, is driving most companies brand efforts nowadays. Even small companies are now learning that CSR and environmental or political advocacies need not be the gameplay of big companies. Because the perception of value is beyond the product and can also be represented by the company producing it, advocacies cannot be easily dissociated from product and lifestyle choices.
Comment by dave — November 26, 2009 @ 1:24 pm |
Amen to that Dave. It’s sad though, internal branding, CSR, and similar efforts have been trumpeted as more efficient and effective way of branding/marketing but there are still plenty of unbelieving companies who’d rather pour millions in traditional advertising. By doing so, they think they already do branding and hope to rake in cash in no time. This can be achieved, but more often, this could be Pyrrhic victory. Again, the business world is fast shifting and not strenthening the brand’s core strength may be detrimental to their businesses in the long run.
Thanks for dropping and sharing your thoughts.
Comment by kenlerona — November 26, 2009 @ 11:37 pm |