The importance of Employee Branding in delivering brand narrative

Jeremy Bullmore CBE (former Chair of The Advertising Association) once said that brands are built “like birds build nests – i.e. one piece at a time. In the context of media fragmentation, social sharing, ever-shorter attention spans and IPA case studies reinforcing the importance of running multiple executions, this has never been more true.

Beautifully crafted TV spots and heavyweight schedules are no longer enough – how you behave is more important than what you say. Just ask the banks how they’re doing at rebuilding trust. The key insight being missed is that 55% of us trust branch colleagues, while only 18% trust the sector.

Brands are gradually established or repositioned in the minds of customers through numerous experiences with products, services and systems, which are ultimately created or delivered by people. One poor experience and plenty of good work can easily be undone.

In the Automotive sector, 87% of recent car buyers say they’ll buy the same brand next time, but only 56% go on to do so. Interactions with colleagues at local (franchised) dealerships are critical. Prior to purchase, if the dealership cannot fulfill a requested test drive, then the brand/car is then removed from the shortlist in 9 out of 10 cases.

Employees are ultimately the delivery mechanism of a company’s strategy and, therefore, a fundamental component of the brand. That ExCo vision is ultimately futile without a structured employee brand in place that articulates the culture, rewards, process, strategy and structure that supports its delivery.

Despite the importance of employees, however, few companies give them as much attention as they do capital investments or cashflow. Instead, lip service is often paid when referring to people as their company’s most important asset.

If CEOs and Chief Marketing Officers are serious about building an iconic brand, then the Human Resource function must be an important dimension to delivery of the brand proposition. The recruitment stage, for example, should have culture in mind.

HR’s leadership role in brand development begins by attracting and onboarding the right talent, for example, people who are driven to want to do the right thing for customers. This is certainly Sir Richard Branson’s view – “the most important recruitment criteria is whether candidates genuinely care about people”. Starbucks claim to be a people company that serves coffee, rather than the other way around.

Brands need consistency in order to establish their positioning. In the context of an ever increasingly number of comms channels, branded messaging needs to feel that they come from the same person. By the same token, employees need a thorough understanding of the company’s mission, vision, values and brand promise to give the basis for some uniformity. They also need to appreciate their own role in delivering the differentiated customer experiences that are so sought after today.

Category Leadership

It sounds obvious, but leaders should lead and never follow. Tesco had plenty to differentiate their “pile it high” discount competitors, i.e. quality, provenance and a relentless customer focus behind the renowned “Every little helps” campaign. Instead, it chose to dance to their competitors’ tune and, in so doing, allowed those brands to experience aggressive double-digit growth in market share. They subsequently posted a £6.4bn loss – one of the largest in UK corporate history.

In stark contrast, when Walkers found its position as the leading crisp brand under threat from competitors offering exciting new ingredients, its response was to innovate rather than imitate. Using the full range of tools at its disposal (distribution, awareness, social media, Gary Lineker), the ‘Do Us A Flavour’ campaign took on its rivals at their own game and outperformed category sales growth by 68%. Walkers also achieved its highest market share for 3 years and a deep level of consumer interaction with over 1m flavour suggestions. It showed how a marketing idea could affect every aspect of the business and 5 years later repeated the campaign with a £1m prize on offer.

So what are the ingredients of a brand leader?

·      The attitude of a leader and clarity on the challenge – what will it take to lead or even grow the market?

·      A robust strategy to drive consideration and even re-appraisal - you play to your strengths

·      Behave like a leader – think like a challenger, but act in a way that demonstrates leadership

·      A plan to sustain momentum – a programme for generating fresh ideas and evolving the narrative. Smarter use of research to generate insight into where the market’s going, so you can get there before the competition

Napolina behaved like a leader even before it reached the top. Central to the brand’s leadership behaviour is its consistent focus on being ‘at the heart of Italian cooking’ – which gives the brand both authenticity and the elasticity to stretch into numerous product categories. It behaved like the market leader and the market followed.

Some brands are able to effectively invent a new category (thanks to Activia we're all familiar with probiotic yogurt), but even in saturated markets the combination of sharp consumer insight and creative execution can propel a new brand to the top. Look at what’s happened in baby food, where Plum and Ella’s Kitchen left Heinz, for all its marketing muscle, far behind.

Numerous challenger brands have successfully changed the conversation in their markets by focusing on a core message and adapting to connect both emotionally and rationally. After all, why challenge when you can lead?