Several years ago I convinced our executive team that it was time for a brand refresh. The company’s customers, services and culture had changed dramatically since its founding four decades earlier–and its folksy logo and brand messaging didn’t reflect this transformational shift in the business.
Upon announcing the rebranding initiative at an all-company meeting, I came to quickly understand my enthusiasm was not shared by all. In fact, many employees–some of whom had been with the business for 30+ years, were vocally opposed to the idea. One such naysayer (we’ll call him Sam) approached me later that week to passionately to argue his case. “I just really believe replacing our logo is a terrible idea! Brands have value!”
To which I jumped up from my chair, threw my arms in the air, and excitedly replied, “Yes, I agree! Brands absolutely DO have value! But a brand is NOT a logo, Sam! A brand is a feeling!”
A brand is not a logo. A brand is a feeling. It’s the feeling someone gets
–customer, employee, the general public–whenever they hear or think about your company. That feeling comes with repeated experience, so it is built over time. It must be operationalized and is inseparable from company culture.
Hunh? A feeling?
Don’t get me wrong–logos matter. They are part of an organization’s identity and physical evidence (to borrow from the “7P’s” of service marketing), and should reflect its personality–along with brand color palette, the style of other visual elements and the brand voice. But there is much, much more to a brand!
A BRAND results from the layering and interconnection of all the strategic decisions an organization makes–product/service value propositions, how customers are treated, what types of people get hired and promoted, how workflows pass from one functional area to the next, how technologies support or don’t support those workflows, where the capital investments are made. These mishmash of all these decisions produce the accumulated customer experience, employee experience, partner and public experience. So at its very essence, a brand is the result of the organizational values companies actually put into practice–which makes rebranding and brand-building difficult and complex work.
I asked Sam to think about how the business had changed since he first joined it. We had more than quadrupled in size, and the majority of our work was coming from a completely different industry. We’d invested heavily in facilities and laboratory instrumentation. We had created new positions to support a new way of serving customers. We had streamlined and formalized processes to improve efficiency, ensure quality, and deliver a consistent customer experience. We rewrote our employee handbook to remove outdated policies and signal trust in our people to make good decisions.
Sam nodded in agreement, “Okay. I get it. Can we at least have a say in what the new logo will look like. Maybe give employees a shot at designing it?”
“Hmmm.” I said, considering Sam’s request. I knew from experience that good logo design takes a special skill. But he clearly cared, and I wasn’t about to shut him down. Then it occurred to me…. Earlier in the day, the executive team had hammered out a draft of our new company mission and vision statements. But we had not started on the statement of values–the desirable behaviors and character traits on which the brand would be built.
I continued, “The new logo design needs to reflect our company’s personality. Would you be willing to co-chair a committee to write our organizational values?” I knew this request wasn’t exactly what Sam had in mind, but after a bit more explanation, he happily agreed.
Before leaving the office that evening, I sent an all-company email inviting anyone interested in talking about company values to join Sam and me for a brown bag lunch. To my surprise, our first values committee workshop filled the largest available conference room in the building. In the weeks that followed, teams came together to brainstorm, and to debate the nuances between meanings of words. They argued whether each truly characterized our company culture–or the one we wanted to create. And although the final list ended up longer than I’d hoped, I couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcome. Through this experience, I had raised a whole army of true brand ambassadors–front line employees who were proud of our organization and what we had become.
We decided our values included scientific excellence and exacting quality, and at the same time humility and commitment to service… we were trusted, intelligent problem-solvers. They also included persistence and hard work–we were midwesterners and our work ethic was a differentiator! We were on a very lean budget, so I knew the look and feel had to be bold.
In the end, I believe the creative succeeded in conveying our authentic. brand–while at the same time celebrating our people. Every layout featured an image of an employee’s face–tightly cropped from eyebrow to brim of nose–in laboratory safety goggles, smiling to add warmth. The result was a series of arresting visuals that caused one to look directly into each subject’s “intellectual eyes”–and had the added benefit of preserving employee anonymity. Many employees and customers made a game out of guessing the identities of those who were featured, which deepened the overall impact.
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose – a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (August 30,1797 – February1, 1851)
We scheduled an all-company meeting offsite at a nearby convention center, so everyone could be together for the internal brand launch. I titled my presentation, “A Brand is a Feeling.” My goal was not just to roll out our new brand, but to recognize the solid work of the values committee and to impress upon every employee a responsibility to embrace the statement of values–as it was they, not the marketing team, who would build the brand. And “A Brand is a Feeling” stuck.
Not surprisingly, it also earned me years of friendly ribbing in hallways and meeting rooms. “How are you feeling today, Kristein?” Complaints were often aired in terms of feeling this way or that (usually with a smile).
I’ve since presented and re-purposed some version of that message over the years with other organizations, and every time it works. It resonates with people because, well, it’s true. It also urges employees (and hopefully their leaders) to think about marketing in broader terms–holistic terms.
B2X Strategies, LLC 