Brand Champions

Brand Champion of the Day- Rex King, Team Leader, Whole Foods Market

The Brand Champion of the Day is Rex King, Team Leader for Whole Foods Market. Often times a colleague of mine and I meet at Whole Foods to discuss branding projects that we are working on. We like to meet at Whole Foods because in full view are the company's core values. That is very inspiring to our thinking as brand consultants, not to mention eating organicl food in a wonderful branded environment. We also meet their because of Rex King. He never fails to provide us with an on-brand experience that aligns with the core values that we see on the wall. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Rex and his store marketing director, Natasha Calvert to discuss their thoughts on what it means to be a brand champion at Whole Foods Market. Here are some thoughts that Rex and Natasha wanted to share with you today.

Rex says, "Whole Foods is a bottom up company and mission-driven. We all share in the fate of Whole Foods and strive to execute our core values and mission to the best of our abilities. We use terms like team member and team leader (Rex King is a team leader), instead of employee and manager. Whole Foods believes that philosophy makes for happier team members, and happy team members makes for happy customers. We also expect our vendors to take pride in their work, and adhere to the same core values that our team members and team leaders do. Our reputation depends on it. My personal motto is that we take pride in our work and the products that we sell. If we do that our customers will be pleased with their experience at Whole Foods."

Natasha adds, "Our culture is one of empowerment, and our training is the key to developing our culture and understanding our core values. Our training sessions at Whole Foods University (an online connected program) teaches the culture of the company to our team members, helps them to better communicate and understand safety issues. Our core values are a given and is what connects our team members in our 11 regions. But, the company does allow for flexibility and interpretation of our core values at the regional, store, team leader and team member levels. In addition to our core values, we want to make sure that our team members and our vendors understand the importance of our quality standard guidelines, plus our customers expect it. These concepts also ensure that the vision of our founder, John Mackey is fulfilled."

Now you know why Whole Foods is so successful. I can't think of too many organizations that completely understand their mission, vision and core values like Whole Foods does. I also have not experienced too many employees, I mean team members, more enthusiastic about where they work, than I did when I met with Rex and Natasha. What do you think about what Rex and Natasha have to say about their organization, and how can you apply that to your organization?

Personal Branding Workshops

I want to let you know that I have been invited to conduct a series of personal branding workshops at the University of Denver. The program will support the University College Student Services office by providing resources to students for developing a personal brand strategy that can guide their job search and career change plans.

Students will understand why branding is important, explore successful branding case studies that can be applied to their job search or career change plans, learn a successful model for building a personal brand strategy, gain insights about the brand development process and create their own personal brand positioning platform.

The workshops are part of the program series for Brand Champion U. What do you think about developing a personal brand positioning platform for graduate students to help them in their job search or career change plans?

Brand Initiative

I just finished a great book, Taking Brand Initiative by Mary Jo Hatch and Majken Schultz. Mary Jo is professor emerita at the University of Virgina's McIntire School of Commerce and adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and Majken is professor at the Copenhagen Business School. Together, they co-founded the Corporate Brand Initiative, which is funded by the LEGO Group.

The book focuses on cases studies of many organizations in Europe and the United States, and assesses the success of how those organizations align their vision, culture and images. As you know, I am a strong advocate of, and work with organizations to align their internal cultures with their external reputations. I believe this book has relevance to all organizations, no matter your industry or where you are in the brand development process.

In my quest to develop a network of brand champions, and provide resources to help us recruit others, I will share additional thoughts on this topic in the near future. For now, this book has been added to my recommended reading list for brand champions.

Brand Champion of the Day- Christine Clifford Beckwith, President of the Cancer Club and Beckwith Partners

Today the Brand Champion of the Day is Christine Clifford Beckwith. Christine is President of the Cancer Club and, along with husband, Harry Beckwith, forms Beckwith Partners. Many of you probably know Christine as an award-winning international speaker. I was first introduced to Christine's work, when I read a book that she co-authored with her husband, entitled You, Inc. I was really impressed with the book, and you will note, I have it on my recommended reading list for brand champions.

In Christine's bio, I read that she attended the University of Denver (DU). As many of you know, I used to work at the University, so I emailed Christine to congratulate her on the book and informed her of our common bond at DU. After several email exchanges, I invited Christine to share some thoughts with us today on what she thinks it means to be a brand champion.

Christine says, "I'm delighted to participate. I think what I'd love to write about is the new book, "You, Inc. The Art of Selling Yourself". It is a book about the brand "YOU".

As with all companies, products, services or causes that people are trying to establish a brand for, at the heart of every transaction the first thing you sell is yourself. People buy YOU. You need to ask yourself several questions: Who are you? Find your story and tell it well. What do you do? You must be able to answer that simply. What is your specialty? Become a Jack of One Trade instead of a Jack of a Dozen Trades, and people will look to you or your company as the "expert" in your field. Ask yourself, How am I stereotyped? Then break the mold.

When I set about starting The Cancer Club, I answered these very questions. Who was I? A cancer survivor who found humor in her journey. What do I do? Offer humorous and helpful products to people with cancer. Our specialty? Laughter. And boy, did we break the stereotypical mold of cancer survivors! Until my first book ("Not Now...I'm Having a No Hair Day!") was published, only two people had attempted to use humor to describe a cancer experience: Erma Bombeck in her book "I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to go to Boise" and Gilda Ratner in her book, "It's Always Something." But no one had used cartoons to describe the journey. Another critical aspect of establishing your brand is to have a name for your company/service/cause no longer than three syllables and nine letters. Why? Because people can't remember anything longer than that. Our most successful and recognizable companies today? Nike...Lexus...FedEx...Google...Apple. Make your name memorable, like Cancer Club, and position yourself as a brand. And don't forget to laugh!"TM

Christine, thank you so much for sharing your inspirational insights. What do you think of what Christine has to say?

Brand Speak in Indianapolis

Yesterday I was fortunate to have the opportunity to present at the 2008 National Catholic Educational Association Conference in Indianapolis. This was the second year in a row that I have had the pleasure to talk to Catholic School educators about the importance of developing a sustainable school brand. As you may know, this is one of the largest conferences in the United States, in terms of attendees.

Like last year, I co-presented with Richard Thompson, Superintendent of Catholic Schools in Denver. As we did last year in Baltimore, Mr. Thompson and I presented the case study of the branding initiative that we have worked on together for the past few years. As I have mentioned in previous posts, the Office of Catholic Schools in Denver are among the leaders in educational branding, and have done a magnificent job of championing the Catholic Schools brand.

For those of you in attendance in Indianapolis, or anyone else, what are your thoughts about branding initiatives for your school, or educational branding in general?

Brand Speak in Denver

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker for the Cherry Creek Chamber of Commerce as part of the organization's business success series. The title of my presentation was, Branding: Latest Fad or Sustainability Strategy? For some, the word branding still has confusing or negative connotations. For a growing number, branding is the means to a sustainable future.

Our group yesterday was comprised of small, medium and large organizations. We covered a lot of material including, the evolution of branding, the process for building a sustainable brand, case studies and what it means to be a brand champion. I hope that those in attendance found relevance to the presentation and are able to immediately take the appropriate next steps to developing a sustainable brand at a personal or organizational level.

For those in attendance, or anyone else, what did you think, latest fad or sustainability strategy?

Sport Brand Champions

Last week, I read where former Notre Dame and National Basketball Association player, Lafonso Ellis said that in terms of sport, Notre Dame is the number one brand. Now, a radio analyst for Notre Dame University basketball, you might expect him to say so. But, knowing many Notre Dame alumni who are brand champions of ND, I think they truly believe it.

Ellis goes on to say that he thinks the Notre Dame brand exceeds the New York Yankees and others. While I admire Lafonso's passion for his alma mater and I have no doubt that he bleeds Irish green, I find it hard to believe that Notre Dame is the number one sport brand. I am not sure they can stake that claim even in US collegiate sport, let alone all sport around the world.

What about Manchester United, Brasil National Football, New England Patriots or other teams? What team do you think is the number one sport brand, and how can we harness the same enthusiasm we have for sport into the passion we want for our brand from our employees and customers?

Brand Champion of the Day- Brad Thomas, Owner, Makina Creative

Today's Brand Champion of the Day is Brad Thomas, owner of Makina Creative. I had the fortune of meeting Brad at a conference in Toronto. Since the conference we have stayed in touch and realize that we share many common perspectives on branding. We are also alums from the same college. Today, Brad shares these views on what it means to be a brand champion.

Brands Are People Too

"For thousands of years man lived just like the animals, then something extraordinary happened to us which unleashed the power of our imagination... we learned to talk. Now it seems that our brands do all the talking. But what are they saying? Some of them maybe talk too much, some maybe too little. Some aren’t using the right words. Some talk too loud, some too soft. Some speak in tongues. The challenge lies in finding the right language.

Communication is a powerful tool. If you’re a Graphic Artist, like myself it’s what you do on a daily basis, you try to find the right visual language to speak with. Branding is one of the most challenging, but as well one of the most rewarding types of communications to investigate and develop. Visual imagery is extremely subjective and creating a brand is an organic process that must be given time to gestate. Brands are like people. Most of us took 9 months to become unique. There are myriad layers involved in any good brand, things that must be carefully thought out. All the angles must be considered, and the right ingredients tossed in, in order to form the whole, in order to be effective. George Nelson said “No design can exist in isolation. It is always related, sometimes in very complex ways, to an entire constellation of influencing situations and attitudes. What we call good design is one which achieves integrity—that is unity or wholeness—in balanced relation to its environment.” When you break it all down you are in essence taking an immaterial idea and giving it form, and function, a life. Has your brand been given enough time? Enough thought? Enough…?

From a designer’s standpoint, when I think of branding, I think not only of the brand itself, but also what the brand represents. Good brands can effectively and almost effortlessly fuse the two together. There is a personality behind the fingerprint that comes through at every touch point. Brands are social creatures though. They need lots of friends to survive. They don’t necessarily need to be popular, but maybe just well known. If someone walks up to your brand on the street and asks it to describe itself. How does it answer? Your brand should describe itself, not what it hopes to be or who it’s attracted to. Brands that talk about things they’re not, always risk sounding fake. No one likes that. Be uniquely you. Others will find it refreshing. Speak to what you are, project that, and therefore attract people who identify with that. That’s what a good brand has to do. Be just what it is. Use the right language, communicate its essence. Connect. How does your brand describe you or your organization? How does it connect with people?

In Bruce Mau’s An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth, he states, “Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for. Work the metaphor.”

Brad Thomas

I want to thank Brad taking time out of your busy schedule to share these insights with us. To continue the dialogue with Brad, he can be reached at brad@makinacreative.com To comment on Brad's post or recommend who you think should be the next Brand Champion of the Day, click on the comments link below.

Clinton Brand

As you probably know, in 2005 former President, Bill Clinton, established the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) with the intent on turning ideas into action. CGI brings together world leaders, students and others from the public and private sectors to  bring about lasting social change.

The name Clinton Global Initiative University exudes power, creativity and innovation. Led by one of the world's most dynamic change agents, I have no doubt that the University will fulfill its mission and vision. Can the same be said for the former President's impact on Hillary's campaign for President?

How do you think that Bill Clinton's brand enhances Hillary Clinton's brand? Or is there just the Clinton brand, whether we are talking about Bill and/or Hillary? Are they each other's greatest brand champion?

Nashville Brand Champions

Check out the brand champions program. Gog to the Nashville Music City website and type in brand champions in the search function. According to their website, "A Music City Brand Champion is defined as any convention, conference or meeting group who embraces Nashville's Music City Brand through their marketing and promotional efforts. The Music City Brand represents all genres of music- from country to blues, rock to jazz, gospel to bluegrass, and classical to songwriting. Nashville is about all kinds of music. We challenge you to find ways to include music into your meeting."

The Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau recognizes each group that uses the Music City Brand by awarding them with a unique Nashville gift. I like this approach. Most cities that have attempted branding initiatives, like many other organizations, have limited their efforts to logos and taglines. It appears that Nashville understands that their brand is their name, the emotional associations people make with their name, and the brand experience in Nashville.

I try to encourage my clients, and their constituents to think about what their organization's name stands for. I think Nashville knows that. What does your city or organization stand for?