Brand Champions

Is Occupy Wall Street in Need of a Brand Manager?

Since day one I have thought that the name Occupy Wall Street is confusing. When I hear or see the word occupy I think of take over, possess, capture and seize. Those have never felt like the right fit for what I think the purpose of the movement is. I was, and still am, under the impression that the people "demonstrating" are voicing their concerns about the financial services industry and the influence they have on the world's economy. And the fact that they were given huge bailouts by the government. I thought they were trying to do what they wished someone else had done a few years ago.

Although there now seems to be an increase in momemtum and the media appears to be getting closer to being in alignment, this branding process could have been much more effective with a brand strategy in the first place. When it is crystal clear what your brand stands for it is much easier for those who want to support your brand, your brand champions, and those who do not want to support your brand, your brand inhibitors, to do so. Without a brand strategy you look like you do not stand for anything and you are not sustainable.

Like many organizations or movements, Occupy Wall Street seemed to start out as a tagline, rather than a brand.  A few people lock themselves in a room one afternoon and brain storm ideas for a tag. They do not spend the appropriate time discussing purpose, developing and then testing the strategy. As a result they come up with a tag that sounds like take over and is confrontational. When this happens your organization runs the risk of being influenced by those who do not share your purpose. Violence then erupts. No one really likes that do they? Or you let others like the media define you.

If you are going to have a tagline, have one that makes sense and represents your purpose. Something like Wall Street Divides. Manage your brand.

Rex Whisman

Chief Strategist

BrandED Consultants Group

Can Research in Motion Live Up to Its Brand Promise? Will RIM Turn Into RIP?

 

This has been a frustrating week for the Canadian brand and for users like me and many of you. For years we have championed the Research in Motion (RIM) Blackberry brand and relied on the smart phone to keep us up to date and in sync with the rest of the world. Especially when we are on the road. When those of us who were on the road this week who experienced the outage, we felt out of sorts.

Coupled with the emergence of iPhones and Droids we Blackberry folks are feeling left in the dust. I know many Blackberry users decided to give others options a go this week. I must admit that I was thinking the same. As a brand consultant and someone who loves to feel loyal to a trusted brand I want to stay with RIM. But I anticipate that unless RIM lives up to its brand promise I might go the way of Apple or Google.

I am always reminding people that a brand is a name, what that name stands for and the associations that people make with that name when they see or hear that name. In the case of Research in Motion, I think about technology, keeping ahead of the game and providing users with efficient results. I want to keep doing so. If not RIM might evolve to RIP.

Rex Whisman

Chief Strategist

BrandED Consultants Group

Brand is About People and Organization

As we know all too often those who are responsible for brand development think in terms of advertising and marketing. They are trained to focus on creating an external campaign that targets an audience or two. They are caught in systems that prevent them from connecting with internal stakeholders and are expected to generate a quick return on investment.

Despite the planet's economic hardships, the days of thinking and acting like that are over. Brand is about people and organization. Those are terms and concepts that should be synonymous with brand. Branding is the process of aligning our internal culture with our external reputation. Our employees who are charged with delivering on our brand promise must be valued first, our customers second.

If we do not develop a culture to support our brand and provide systems by which our internal and external stakeholders (reminder, these are your brand champions) can connect and demonstrate passion for our brand, then we might as well go back to the days of Don Draper and the other Mad Men of the 20th century. By the way, I wish that show would get back on the air soon. I am in need of more advertising fodder!

Rex Whisman

BrandED Consultants Group

Al Davis Was the Epitome of a Brand Champion

Growing up in Denver and being a life-long Broncos fan, one of my least favorite people on Planet Earth was Al Davis. Why? Because his Raiders always seemed to beat up on our poor little ponies. Seeing him prance around on the field during pre-game warm ups dressed in those black and white jump suits made me want to scream. It was if some criminal had broken out of jail and was given safe haven on our stadium floor. The gaul!

Deep down inside I was jealous of Al Davis. If the truth be known I wanted to be Al Davis. He seemed to have it all. An owner of one of the most successful teams in American sport, a one time coach, owner and even commissioner in the most popular sport in the United States. As a youngster I could not understand why the Raiders had such a passionate leader, players and fans. I now know it was because the Raiders had one of the most effective brands.

This week the Bay Area lost two of its icons. Earlier in the week Apple lost Steve Jobs. Today the Raiders lost Al Davis. In both people the world lost two of its greatest brand champoins. What wonderful case studies for anyone or any organization wanting to understand what it means to be a brand champion.We will miss them.

Rex Whisman

BrandED Consultants Group

Brand Jobs

Steve's job was to think differently. Your job is to have confidence in your way of thinking. We all do it, but sometimes we have a challenge of understanding how the way we think fits into the thinking of the organization that we work for. Of course the process is much easier when your organization has a brand platform to help guide the direction of the organization. This allows you to determine if your brand aligns with your company's.

Steve Jobs understood the value of thinking differently. It was not a case of him sitting down and trying to figure out how to think another way. It was him having the confidence in his way of thinking to guide him and his organization. As a result his way of thinking allowed a legion of people who shared similar ways of thinking to become champions of his brand and brand champions for Apple.

As he said in his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005, "Do not lead someone else's life." Understand your purpose in life and what your guiding principles are. This allows you to have confidence that your way of thinking is right. It is our Brand Jobs.

Rex Whisman

BrandED Consultants Group

Branding in Not an Education Reform Movement

As we know education is often slower to embrace business concepts than other sectors of society. There exists a sharper degree of skepticism and expectations to deliver are heightened. Educators demand a process that achieves measurable results. They want a forum to offer an opinion. I guess it makes sense that the education community as a whole is still deciding how branding fits.

These are all justifiable requests. If we think of branding as the process of aligning a system's internal culture with its external reputation, then branding seems like a logical fit for educators. Unfortunately some initiatives leave out the very important internal pieces. Often marketers who lead these initiatives are not trained to think internal and do not understand the value of employee engagement.

When done right, branding honors the history and traditions of a system, and places it in a 21st century context. This approach is sustainable. Reform movements seem to want to turn the education system upside-down or on its ear. These movements often seem politically motivated. In my view, branding is not a reform movement. Branding is about engagement, recruitment and retention of your brand champions. The people who love you.

If a system embraces a reform movement, it should be guided and fall under an overarching brand strategy.

Rex Whisman

BrandED Consultants Group 

Brand + Social Media = Strategy

Today I head west to the Bay Area where I will be delivering a presentation tomorrow at the 2011 Strategic Internal Communications Conference. The theme is How to Use Social Media & Traditional Communications to Engage Employees, Drive Performance & Add Value. That concept is right in my wheel house. No wonder I was invited to present.

The title of my session is Friending, Sharing, Tweeting and Building Community: A Social Media Approach to Internal Communications and Employee Engagement. Along with other presenters, I will be delivering a case study from one of my client projects. I will be demonstrating how to effectively engage employees in the brand development process through Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and blogs.

I look forward to learning from others and hopefully providing a few nuggets that attendees will be able to use in their respective organizations. Not a bad way to spend a few days. Talking about my favorite subject on one of my favorite areas of the globe.I hope to connect with many new brand champions. #intcomms

Rex Whisman

BrandED Consultants Group

Branding in Not a Campaign

More and more organizations are coming to the realization that branding is not a word or concept to replace terms like advertising, marketing and public relations. Advertisers, marketers and public relations professionals are also embracing the notion that branding is not just a campaign. Sure advertising, marketing and public relations should be a part of the brand development process.

But, the execution and the channels by which you reach out to connect with brand champions should be based on your brand strategy. For those of you who know me, you know that I define branding as the process of aligning your internal culture with your external reputation. The best outcomes result by engaging those stakeholders in that process.

Everyone today expects that an organization stand for something. They also want the organization that they work for or buy from to be transparent and bring to life their mission and core values. By so doing, you will be able to effectively recruit and retain your brand champions. Although politicians and their advisers might beg to differ, branding is not a campaign. And despite the fact that we elect our officials every few years, and your organization has its sales cycles, branding is not a campaign.

A brand is sustainable when you think in terms of a forever linear process, not a circle.

Rex Whisman

BrandED Consultants Group

Engaging Stakeholders Helps Ensure Brand Sustainability

I think more and more organizations are understanding the need, and actually now do engage their stakeholders in the brand development process. It seems almost a given these days to do so. In fact our stakeholders expect it. Unfortunately most organizations have not done so in the past. As a result they need to build systems and processes to do so.

My organization helps others develop sustainable brand strategies based on mission, core values and stakeholder engagement. Right from the get-go our clients understand the value of their stakeholders providing information about their perceptions of the brand. In all cases aha moments happen in terms of how closely aligned the organization's internal culture is with its external reputation. In many cases the challenge to overcome is internal.

Let us face it, organizations have not been as effective as they could have because they have not done a very good job of orienting their employees about the brand that they are going to work for. If you do nothing else, ask your employees what they think about your brand. Then establish a thorough employee orientation system. Your chances for sustainability will be much greater. You might just be able to recruit and retain your brand champions.

Rex Whisman

BrandED Consultants Group

 

Aligning Personal and Organizational Brand Strategies

Tomorrow I have the privilege of presenting at the campus communicator's conference at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I will be talking about the importance of aligning university, department and individual brands. Included will be the process for developing a personal brand strategy and how to create more value for one's life and career. Then how to execute that strategy through social media.

A few weeks ago I had the chance to talk with a group of students and alumni at another university in our state on the importance of a personal brand strategy for students to help them guide their job search. Tomorrow I will be speaking with professionals and the benefits of personal branding for them. For any organization, whether it be a university brand or other business, mission and core values establish the essence of a brand. The same is true for us.

We need to understand who we are and what we stand for. When we are able to do so, we are much more effective in connecting with the right people and organizations to enhance our life and career. Only then can we effectively recruit and retain our brand champions.

Rex Whisman

BrandED Consultants Group