BRAND â€“ BASED ORGANIZATION:Benefits, Not just marketing but whole culture, Tools to effective communication

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Brand Management (MKT624)

Lesson 41

BRAND BASED ORGANIZATION

Introduction

Leveraging your brand through successive phases of brand management dictates that you have

an organization capable of doing so. Without compatible capabilities, an organization cannot

reap the benefits of brand management concepts in the form of fulfillment of its goals. This

lecture discusses all important aspects from that point of view. It follows the guidelines as

given by Scot Davis.

A brand-based organization

A brand-based organization is customer-centric, and all the decisions it makes are based on

involvement of all in the organization.

The basic premise toward developing such an organization is that branding decisions, though

belonging to the marketing domain, should be based on cross-functional interaction and

involvement of all the relevant departments. In order to do so, there has to be a mechanism to

ensure that cross-functional involvement becomes a structured activity within the organization.

Managers from different departments should make many decisions after consulting each other.

With the thrust on creating a mechanism of joint working and decision making, in essence, it

lays emphasis on understanding everyone's perspective and appreciating their convictions. A

complete and uniform understanding on part of all develops and nurtures uniform convictions

for the good of the organization and its brands. In other words, just meeting and making

decisions is not sufficient. Managers from across the lines should be convinced that whatever

decisions are taken have been the best ones in the interest of the brand.

Benefits

Clarity of role: All employees are clearer about how they fit into the overall scheme of things,

their role, role's importance, significance of relationships and interactions. This improves their

performance and performance measurement becomes easy and straightforward.

Commitment to brand growth: It confirms that customer, company staff, and the brand are all

inseparably related and need focus of all. Toward that, it seeks commitment of top management

to the branding process. The process of living such an organization is continuous in which there

is perpetual communication, development of ideas, thoughts, and actions. This can be

witnessed in any organization with a strong brand. You must have noticed the pride that

employees take in being a part of such organizations. The pride comes through a sense of

ownership not only of the brand, but also of all thoughts, plans, and actions relating that brand.

A collective responsibility: Such a culture binds all in the organization around the position of

the brand, which no longer remains a creative philosophy of the marketing department.

Delivering on the promise becomes a collective responsibility and the whole focus gets onto the

point that while customers think of satisfying their need they must think of your brand. Your

brand must be the first one to come to their mind. This is where positioning comes to life an

excellent example of everyone's input toward that achievement!

Such a culture is a reflection of high level of motivation that runs across the organization and

makes implementation of brand-based strategies a guaranteed success, according to Davis.

No extra human resource

The brand-based approach does not call for extra personnel. It derives the desired outcome

through the same people that make up the organization through restructured working groups

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and committees. How do these groups and committees organize themselves around the brand is

what we must learn?

Not just marketing but whole culture

One thing is clear that it is not just about marketing; it is about creating a culture that must

support brand's positioning and brand's promise two vital strategic dimensions. To be able to

deliver the promise, all processes, functions, and resources have to be integrated and

reinforced. This has to be done at the top most level and is done through formation of different

committees.

Management has to believe in the power of the brand and that brand has to be managed across

many functions is the chief principle of this philosophy. In organizations that have been

successful in this kind of effort, the committee responsible for managing brand from the

standpoint of increasing its value is headed by the head of marketing. The committee is

represented by people from operations, R&D, and other senior managers who head other

functional areas. A lot of investment is done into developing new entrants into management to

impart brand knowledge and commitments. The result is total "executive support" toward

delivering the brand promise.

Possible new entities and internal structuring

With the view that brand management strategy is good for long term health of the brand and the

company, the organizational support to such strategies is to be given at the top. Following are a

few examples of the new internal structures to carry out winning BM strategies2:

Chief Branding Officer CBO: Either the head of marketing department or a major

brand, this person is responsible for the brand strategy and its implementation, meaning

for complete performance of the brand.

BM Steering Committee: This relates strategy and it has to be headed by the CEO. If

there is a CBO, then he or she may head this committee. This committee is responsible

for developing all linkages between all functional strategies and BM strategy.

Since all strategies flow out of brand vision and must work in harmony for the same

goals, there has to be someone making sure that right linkages are developed to get

results and add value to the brand. The head therefore has to be a very senior person,

preferably CEO or at least CBO.

BM director's committee: This comprises of managers from middle to senior level with

CBO being its head. The basic function of this committee is to ensure that BM is

executed the way it was planned. From the standpoint of execution, this committee also

is multi-functional in its constitution. Whereas steering committee is all about strategy,

this one is all about actions.

BM teams: These teams are also cross-functional and work at a level below that of

director's committee. The function here is to ensure action at lower level. It is headed

by someone from the marketing department, most probably brand manager.

There is no one established recipe for developing internal structures. It all depends on the

overall structure and human resource of the company that lays the foundation for a brand-based

organization. The most important aspect of the effort is to develop working relationships that

have authenticity and legitimacy.

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Cross-functional approach

Such relationships are possible only through developing a cross-functional (CF) approach that

lends BM real strength and power. All good companies depend on cross-functional team

representation. That drives brand management strategies with full vigor and thrust.

The CF teams work as a good link with their original functional areas and therefore offer good

opportunities for educating people there. Some of the benefits of having these CF teams are that

they provide good input for any brand project from their functional standpoint. Example:

people from information technology side may point out something that has the potential to

positively change marketing tactics in terms of order processing. People from finance may

point out something that has a meaningful impact on pricing strategy and hence margins!

CF teams lead the education and training effort in the most practical way on strategic matters

that have a direct bearing on BM strategies.

Internal communication and education

The matter does not end at formation of committees. Once the strategy is in place and

committees formed for execution, it becomes imperative to start communicating for the

purpose of educating employees at different levels and functions of the organization. Without

communication, education is difficult, and without education results remain improbable. The

ultimate objective of the brand-based education is to create a culture in which brand vision is

understood, brand picture upheld, and brand positioning fully owned.

There could be a variety of approaches toward education regarding brand promise and

positioning. Some of the approaches adopted by good companies are the following3:

· Internal groups focusing on education through lectures

· Company publications

· Speaker series by outside experts about their experiences

· Interactive training modules in which knowledge is imparted on segmentation,

differentiation, promise, and positioning etc.

The idea of all the training and education programs is to learn the concepts and then

immediately apply those to real life situations within their areas. Some companies also measure

internally the brand perception of their own staff members and then compare that with the

brand perception of customers in the market place. The gaps highlight areas to be stressed in

terms of training and education. The interaction with staff under such conditions really help the

company make their staff understand brand positioning, which is the key to successful BM.

Tools to effective communication

1. Let the employees know the research

It may not be a bad idea to let the employees know how the company arrived at the

brand vision, brand picture, brand positioning, and the overall brand-based customer

model. Letting them know how competition stacks up against your brand and what are

the customer expectations from your brand (as per research findings) will buy them in

to the strategic thinking of the company.

Letting them also know the overall objectives the company is expecting to achieve will

win over their confidence in the company and the project for the good of BM strategies.

Lack of confidence and cooperation from other functional areas always is caused by the

thinking on their part that marketing and branding people are attempting to do creative

things in isolation. No one likes that.

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2. Make sure the employees understand the results company is seeking

As a continuation of the attempt to let them know overall objectives, you must make

them understand the results that are expected. Gain their support for those parts of the

objectives that fall into their respective areas. To achieve that, break objectives into

different levels and involve the CF teams to fix those for people in their respective

areas. Let them have a sense of ownership.

3. Let the employees know game and action plan

Employees also have to be guided about what actions they are to take in light of the

strategies. Tell them specifically any changes that are desired in their daily routines and

activities. Educate them on any new activities that are required on their part to deliver

the promise and uphold the contract. Give them targets and measure their performance

against those targets.

Summary

There are two important concluding dimensions of the brand-based culture:

· Commitment of top management to take charge and lead.

· Total involvement of employees all across the organization toward common goals.

Unless management educates the employees about the importance of brand-based culture and

the results it produces in leveraging your brand, participation by employees will not be

meaningful.

Once employees are bought into management's ideas and concepts and take ownership of them,

you will start harnessing the real potential of your brand in terms of revenue generation and

profit making.

To be a successful brand manager, you must appreciate the inputs you will be required to make

and inputs made by others from all levels of the organization.

Suggested readings:

1. Scot M. Davis: "Brand Asset Management Driving Profitable Growth through Your

Brand"; Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint (229-251)

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