Your Brand = Your Employees.

It is amazing how much focus and attention (and money) companies give the branding process (typically done with expensive consultants) and, yet, their employees are left clueless.

Aaron Dignan of Brandplay gives us a great example in a recent open letter to FedEx/Kinkos:

...THIRTY FIVE minutes later, a girl comes out from the back with our printout.  And guess what?  It's the wrong size.  We left irate, and Kinkos spent thirty five minutes to make ONE DOLLAR (which we got refunded). What happened during those thirty five minutes?  We watched seven customers approach the desk with different questions and challenges. Every single one of them left pissed off.  Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen anyone (customer or employee) truly happy to be at Kinkos.

So why can't companies with such immense resources get it right?

Because most marketers and branding agencies don't focus enough on the principal method a brand is presented to the marketplace...via the company's employees.

Great effort goes into planning and strategizing logos, ads, colors, tag lines, positioning statements and the like. In fact, most branding consultants create enough charts and graphs to make your eyes spin (or glaze over).

But if the guy at the counter taking the customer's money or the operator manning the phones at the call center doesn't live up to it...then it's all irrelevant.

And being "too big to pull it off" is no excuse. Hertz is a great example of that.

Every one of my Hertz experiences in every single city is evidence that a large company can get it right. Each Hertz employee I've encountered acts as if the company's mission is tattooed on his brain. (An even more amazing feat when you consider Hertz is owned by conglomerate Ford.)

It's not new information that internal branding is essential. Yet, surprisingly, it is where most companies (and their brands) fail. If employees don't live the brand...the brand will die a slow and painful (and now with blogs, a very public) death.

If employees don't live the brand all the expensive branding voo-doo in the world won't make it work.

Comments

[Sybil]

Right on, Jonathan. Branding, like charity, starts at home. I'm continually amazed by how many organizations still don't get the self-reinforcing relationship between employee- and customer-satisfaction.

[olivier blanchard]

Great post. (And good comment on the Brains On Fire blog.)

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I'm loving your site more with each post. (Cool image on this one too.)

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Employee marketing is the most leveraged and most powerful tool in a brand marketer's aresenal. Keep beating the drum!

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