Benjamin Bidlack is Brand Strategy Director at RiechesBaird

In the first of two parts we explore what is a Brand Audit and why tech companies choose to conduct them.

Remember the fantastic scene from “A Few Good Men” where Lt. Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise), an inexperienced military trial lawyer, confronts a seasoned Marine Colonel Nathan R. Jessep (played by Jack Nicholson) about the facts surrounding the apparent murder of a fellow Marine? “I want the truth!” exclaims Kaffee in the courtroom. “You can’t handle the truth!” shouts back Jessep.

Although it is sometimes hard to ‘handle’ or swallow, the truth is the idea behind conducting a brand audit. More so than some other industries, tech companies need to know the cold hard truth of how they are perceived in the marketplace. Even if the results hurt the technology brand ego. Because the first step in strengthening brand weaknesses or vulnerabilities is learning precisely where the brand value stands now.

This year, some tech companies won’t need a full-tilt, top-dollar rebranding. They may have just finished a complete rebranding last year, or recently merged or acquired other brands. They might just need a brand audit to help them with this year’s strategy and resourcing decisions.

What is a brand audit?

A brand audit is a thorough, multi-dimensional analysis to understand a company’s brand(s), its internal and external perceptions, and their strategic implications. Brand audits often include rigorous competitor brand evaluations to deliver strategic context and recommendations to its findings.

A brand audit answers questions such as:

-  How do prospects really view the technology brand?
-  Which brand attributes and personality does it and its competitors ‘own’?
-  How much ‘permission’ does the brand have to offer new products or enter new markets?
-  How cohesive and compelling is the tech brand story and promise?
-  What internal and external challenges stand in the way of developing and strengthening brand to drive business forward?
-  Which touch points have the most impact for building this technology brand?
-  How should brand position change to be most effective against competitors?
-  Is it wise to go ‘head-to-head’ with primary competitors? Why or why not?
-  What differentiators do the brand offer that cannot be easily copied?
-  How relevant is the brand in today’s marketplace? How believable is brand promise? How differentiated?

In many cases, technology brands ‘lead with the tech’. They believe it will be compelling enough to drive the trial, preference, and repeat business that drive future revenue. Technology is only part of the value offered by Apple, Google or Microsoft. These technology leaders all carry brand value and associations far beyond the technology they offer: prestige (or ‘everyman-ness’), cool (or not-so-cool) ‘geekiness’, self-expression, social or economic status, values, etc.
Top technology brands also carry associations related to value delivery, service quality, and relative pricing, whether it’s their products or stock. The brand value goes far beyond a technological development.

Unfortunately, executives do not always want to hear the truth about their brands. Lack of honest insights can cause uninformed decisions and leave them wondering why the numbers or performance of their brand is not improving.

Can your team handle the truth? Let us know how you uncover the honest data that leads to informed decisions.

Next time, we’ll look at the specific elements of a brand audit, and why it can be a relatively inexpensive and extremely effective tool.

Benjamin Bidlack is Brand Strategy Director at RiechesBaird

Last time we talked Brand Council, it was about who should be on it and what the Council can do to inform the strategic decision-making in a company. The Brand Council should bring a brand lens to organization-wide decisions and activities to ensure adherence to the brand promise and to protect and build brand value.

How to “turbo charge” your Brand Council

1. Define the right Mandate for your organization
I would suggest that your Brand Council clearly articulate its mandate and have the authority to hold your organization’s people accountable for decisions, actions and behaviors that align with the brand.

The mandate can be simple, “To consider corporate decisions from the point of view of their impact on and alignment with the brand.” Or it can be elaborate, “with tactical objectives and metrics to evaluate business decisions.” Your mandate should also specify the rules and conditions under which issues are brought to the Brand Council for discussion, resolution and communication to the broader organization.

“Our expectation is that the Brand Council be a stakeholder-led control and implementation of the brand against a clear set of guidelines.” – Managing Director, Leading European retailer

2. Meet regularly
Frequency and continuity are vital to institutionalize the Brand Council into your organization’s culture. To establish continuity, the Brand Council should meet at least once every quarter on strategic issues and even more frequently on tactical issues.

In addition to regular meetings, the Brand Council should have the flexibility to convene as the need arises. For example events or operations that impact the brand, responses to recent competitive and/or internal developments such as analyst report releases, new hires, customer satisfaction surveys, etc.

3. Be “brand-centered”
a. Your brand must have a high profile inside your organization. This responsibility typically lies at the door of the C-suite. C-level managers must maintain a high profile for your brand by making a business investment in the brand and supporting the investment by demonstrating a personal pride in what the brand stands for. Simply stated, they need to lead by example in living your brand.

b. Your brand lives beyond marketing. View brand building as a holistic organizational responsibility as opposed to the duty of your marketing department. The functional areas and business units within your organization need to understand, through their leaders on the Brand Council, how they contribute to brand value.

4. Inspire your organization through Brand Ambassadors.
“The key is to ensure that the Council is controlling the brand, but also that it provides the freedom to work within a defined set of parameters.”
– Managing Director, Leading European retailer

Brand Councils have different mandates, membership and processes, depending on the needs of the organization.

The Brand Council also guides and manages the activities of your Brand Ambassadors. Your employees can make or break your brand. When properly inspired and empowered, your Brand Ambassadors will lead your employees to make the brand thrive within your organization and, ultimately, with your customers.

Potential bumps in the road

1. A lack of consensus on the importance of the brand to the organization
The Brand Council is a holistic representation of the organization. Therefore, its members, regardless of functional area, should believe in the brand as a vital corporate asset that merits the time, discussion and collaboration of the organization’s senior leadership.

2. The absence of a clear mandate
Branding can be abstract, even to experienced leaders and managers. Part of the Brand Council’s function is to educate its members and the wider organization about the role and potential value of the brand. A clear, well defined and well communicated Brand Council Mandate ensures that the organization understands the purpose of the Brand Council and the value it can bring.

3. Infrequent meetings
A lack of regular Brand Council meetings hinders the momentum on brand-related discussions and sends the message that the brand is a lower business priority.

4. The absence of C-suite support
C-suite support of the Brand Council is critical, especially at the outset, in order to give the Brand Council the credibility and visibility it needs to enable effective strategic brand decisions. Without this support, the Brand Council runs the risk of losing relevance among the organization’s functional leaders.

5. A highly fragmented organizational culture
Structure that favors operation in “silos” over enterprise-wide communication and collaboration. Here’s a real quote about how people throughout an organization often use the brand in the wrong way, creating dilution and eroding its power:
“People want to re-interpret and re-invent things.” – Managing Director, Leading European retailer

Organizations predisposed to working as autonomous functions, divisions or markets will need to commit themselves to greater intra-company collaboration in order to benefit from creating a Brand Council.

6. Incomplete execution on Brand Council decisions
Like any organization and its functional areas, the Brand Council should be evaluated on business results. Leadership can only make this assessment if the organization consistently executes on the Brand Council’s decisions, and monitors the resulting impact on performance.

Conclusion
This concludes our three-part series on the Brand Council. In short, the Brand Council oversees the activities whereby the brand contributes to shareholder value. When your Brand Council guides business activities to align with the brand promise, your organization will benefit from satisfied customers. Over time, consistent and satisfying brand experiences will transform satisfied customers into loyal customers, which, in turn, helps you secure and grow future earnings and create economic value.

What are your thoughts about Brand Councils?
Does your organization utilize one and is effective?
Would you agree with or refute anything I’ve mentioned in these posts?

Who is part of the Brand Council and what are its functions and processes?

Benjamin Bidlack is Brand Strategy Director at RiechesBaird

Last time, we talked about why almost all companies, technology companies especially, need a Brand Council. Technology companies in particular struggle to enhance the value of their brands by aligning their activities to deliver a fulfilling customer experience beyond the functional and/or technological benefits they offer. All genres of technology are being replicated more and more quickly each year, and customers are getting more and more sophisticated.

The beautiful and invaluable thing to remember about a great technology brand is that it can’t be copied.

Constituting a Brand Council for technology-focused companies

We suggest following two guiding principles to determine who should be a member of your Brand Council:

1. Your Brand Council should have a senior representative from each functional area, since all areas impact the delivery of your brand promise, including:
·         C-suite management
·         Operations
·         Human Capital Resources
·         Finance
·         Marketing
·         Sales
·         Legal
·         Public/Investor Relations
·         Research and Development
·         Administration

We recommend that you also retain an external consulting partner to maintain an objective point of view and provide your Brand Council with current and top branding strategies.

2. A member of senior management should be your Brand Council Leader. This individual should represent the importance and visibility that your organization wishes to give to the brand. We recommend a CEO or COO. The Brand Council should also have a Chair who is responsible for setting the agendas and directing the meetings.

The Brand Council provides strategic brand governance in five categories:
1. Creation/management of the brand
2. Challenges and opportunities for the brand
3. Brand compliance
4. Brand measurement and refinement
5. Brand culture

Beyond “Logo Police”

Following are the types of issues that you may encounter in your Brand Council, grouped into the five categories introduced above.

Brand Council's Information Flow

1. Brand Creation/Brand Management
a. Alignment between business strategy and brand strategy
What is our business strategy, including our short- and long-term business objectives? How does the brand strategy bring this business strategy to life?

b. Business objectives formulation and assessment
How can we leverage the brand to achieve our business objectives (i.e., revenue growth, cost reduction, market share growth, etc.)? How have these objectives changed in the last year/quarter and what impact could these have on the brand?

c.   Product and /or service portfolio decisions
Which products/services complement the brand direction and, therefore, warrant a current or future investment? Conversely, which products/services should be rationalized because they no longer match with the brand promise? What is the best ongoing process to review our portfolio?

2. Brand Opportunities and Challenges
a. Operational choices and decisions
How should the brand promise guide everyday operational issues and/or decisions (e.g., work quality, defect rates, product design, response times, communication gaps, product line or service gaps)? Conversely, how do these operational issues and/or decisions affect the brand?

b. Customer targeting
Which new customers are most likely to benefit from the values, objectives and promise that our brand stands for?

c. Merger and acquisition evaluation
When evaluating potential mergers or acquisitions, which organization(s) would complement our existing brand promise? How do these organizations fit into our existing portfolio? What would be the brand implications of merging with or acquiring these organizations? How can we manage the brand to maximize value for an upcoming liquidity or merger event?

d. Prospective partner assessment
Which potential co-branding partnerships will align with our brand promise and values? Which of these partnerships might be most beneficial for building brand equity?

e. Competitive analysis and response
How does the brand help us differentiate ourselves and de-position our competitors? How can the brand dictate our response to competitive activity?

3. Brand compliance
How do advertising, communications, signage, online and other applications of our identity (e.g., logo, visual vocabulary, language and tone of voice) align with our guidelines for consistent brand expression? Should there be differences in brand expression in the organization and, if so, what are these differences? What are the challenge areas (e.g., too many versions of the logo, inconsistent execution across applications) in the expression of the brand?

4. Brand measurement and refinement
General brand assessment What is the state of the brand (e.g., metrics definition and tracking, findings and implications from any recent brand research, recent media mentions, share of brand choice, etc.)? How do we measure the brand’s performance against the competition in a changing marketplace?

5. Brand culture
a. Brand culture assessment
How deeply are our employees engaged with the brand? How well are our brand attributes being embraced internally to help shape desired behaviors and attitudes? What new programs should we develop to keep people engaged and “living” the brand?

b. Customer touchpoint management
How well have the multiple interactions that customers have with the organization been considered and aligned with the brand? Have touchpoints been mapped and analyzed for improvement so that investment can be directed to those that have the greatest potential for positive impact on the customer experience?

Next time, in Part 3 of 3, we’ll look at specific ways to turbo charge your Brand Council, and pitfalls to avoid.

Part 1 of 3: What is a Brand Council, and why tech companies need them

Benjamin Bidlack is Brand Strategy Director at RiechesBaird

It is now commonly understood that brands represent significant corporate value and are among an organization’s most valuable assets. This value has been demonstrated in brand valuation rankings and acquisition prices worldwide.

Properly created and managed, your brand helps generate operational and economic value by:

- Enhancing awareness, consideration, trial and loyalty
- Adding value to your offering beyond price or technology, both of which can be copied
- Attracting and retaining customers with an engaging promise and experience
- Guiding and informing business decisions and activities
- Attracting and retaining top-tier talent and partners
- Easing entry into new markets
- Commanding price premiums
- Facilitating brand extensions into new products and categories

One of the most pressing challenges we address with clients is how to make business decisions that are consistent with their brand. Technology companies especially struggle to enhance the value of their brands by aligning their activities to deliver a fulfilling customer experience beyond the functional and/or technological benefits they offer.

Consider the following questions:

- Our tech firm has developed a new offering/product/service. Do we need a separate brand? Why or why not?
- One or more aspects of our performance may be hurting our brand image. How can we prioritize where we should take corrective action to protect and build our brand?
- We’re considering a merger, partnership or divestiture. How might that affect our brand(s)? How do we assess which brands to use, how to transition them, over what time period, and why?

Your organization is collectively responsible for creating an expected and consistent brand experience. The challenge becomes how your organization, with its multiple layers, multiple divisions and multiple markets, comes together to address the strategic and tactical issues related to brand management.

The Brand Council defined
A Brand Council is a leadership group, led by the CEO and representative of your larger organization, with one mandate:

To ensure that business strategies, processes, decisions and actions are aligned with the brand’s positioning and values – namely, your organization’s unique promise of distinction.

This, in turn, focuses the entire organization on delivering the fulfilling customer experience that secures loyalty and future earnings. Apple’s brand practically guarantees that every new product or partnership will meet with huge demand, forgiveness for mistakes and general success. Apple has a top secret Brand Council, led by Steve Jobs and other key leaders, whose job it is to steward the brand, and with it, Apple’s success.

The Brand Council provides strategic brand governance in four categories:

1. Creation/management of the brand
2. Challenges and opportunities for the brand
3. Brand compliance
4. Brand measurement and refinement
5. Brand culture

Next week, in Part 2 of 3, we’ll look at the specific makeup of Brand Councils around the world, the 5 functions they typically perform, and the process by which they do it.

In the final installment, in Part 3 of 3, we’ll look at specific ways to turbocharge your Brand Council, and pitfalls to avoid.

Benjamin Bidlack is Brand Strategy Director at RiechesBaird

Part 2: How a strong tech brand can help with inevitable mistakes

Last time, we talked about Google and how its huge brand (valued at $32 Billion in 2009) helped it to move into new categories completely separate from search. But a strong brand also helps with when a company makes a mistake, and Google has certainly had their fair share of them.

Here are a few of Google’s notable technical and/or market failures, none of which has damaged its brand.

1. Google X (Mac OS Dock-inspired search bar)
Google X was a project released by Google in March 15, 2005 and was rescinded a day later. It consisted of the traditional Google search bar, but it was made to look like the Dock interface feature of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. Google never released an official statement as to why the project was shut down.

2. Google Answers (online knowledge market)
Google Answers was an online knowledge market offered by Google that allowed users to post bounties for well researched answers to their queries. Asker-accepted answers cost $2 to $200. Google retained 25% of the researcher’s reward and a 50 cent fee per question. In addition to the researcher’s fees, a client who was satisfied with the answer could also leave a tip of up to $100. In late November 2006, Google reported that it planned to permanently shut down the service, and it was fully closed to new activity by late December 2006, although its archives remain available.

3. Orkut (social media tool)
Although not a failure per se, Google’s Orkut is not a roaring success either, at least in the US. It’s a social networking website designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. The website is named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten.

Although Orkut is less popular in the United States than competitors Facebook and MySpace, it is one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil. In fact, as of December 2009, 51.09% of Orkut’s users are from Brazil, followed by India with 20.02% and United States with 17.28%.

4. Froogle
Originally announced in 2002 as Froogle, now called Google Product search (please notice the re-branding under the Google masterbrand), is a price comparison service launched by Google  Inc. It is currently in beta test stage. It was invented by Craig Nevill-Manning. Its interface provides an HTML form field into which a user can type product queries to return lists of vendors selling a particular product, as well as pricing information. Product Search is only available for selected countries at this point.

Google Product Search is different from most other price comparison services in that it neither charges any fees for listings, nor accepts payment for products to show up first. Also, it makes no commission on sales. Any company can submit individual product information via Google Base or can bulk submit items for inclusion. Google sells advertising through AdWords to be displayed in Product Search results adjacent to the unpaid results.

With all of these missteps, because they are Google, and all they represent, the Google brand can act as Teflon to protect them from the usual damage that strategic missteps can sometimes bring about.

Brand-building has defensive as well as offensive benefits. Toyota’s recent battles over potentially faulty acceleration and shifting features shows that even a strong brand can face devastating blows to its image, however true the allegations and/or perceptions prove to be.

So what’s the lesson in this? Even if you aren’t aiming to launch new products or take over new geographies, it pays to continue to invest in, and prove out, your unique promise to the world. That investment and hard work will be a cache of goodwill and positive associations, ready to help fend off any brand damage that might occur, whether it’s deserved or not.

Do you agree? What do YOU think?

Benjamin Bidlack is Brand Strategy Director at RiechesBaird

Part 1: How building your brand helps you enter (or bulldoze your way into) new products, categories and geographies.

Why invest your brand? Especially a B2B brand? Because it pays off. Handsomely. Let’s look at Google, a brand worth $32 Billion in 2009 according to BusinessWeek. (Yes, that just the brand, not the hard assets. More on brand valuation in an upcoming Brand Valuation blog piece.) Google started off in 1998 as a search engine, competing with a slew of other search providers: Yahoo, Magellan, InfoSeek, AltaVista and a slew of other now irrelevant search brands. Yahoo is the only remaining search competitor worth mentioning, with 14% share of search as of 2/20/2010. That’s 14% compared to Google’s 78%. As a result, I believe, Yahoo decided to turn its brand and business ship toward “personalizing the internet experience” and away from pure search (watch for an upcoming blog on that soon).

Google’s stated mission from the outset was “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” and it has certainly succeeded. In pursuing that objective, the company held two beliefs they bet their life on: 1) “The user is in charge.” And 2.) “If users come, so will revenue.”

Both of those beliefs served to be right. Google quickly monetized their leadership in the space by starting AdWords, their flagship advertising product and main source of revenue ($23.7 Billion in 2009). And then used the power of their brand and reach to enter (or bulldoze into) new categories.

1.  Online productivity software, including email and documents (where Yahoo was the clear leader at the time, and still is: 3.8% share vs. 0.8%)
2.  Desktop apps (GoogleWave)
3.  The Chrome browser
4.  Picasa photo editing and organization
5.  GoogleTalk instant messaging
6.  SketchUp 3D modeling
7.  The incredible and comprehensive GoogleEarth
8.  And most recently, mobile phones and operating systems: Google Phone and Android.

I would suggest that these entries would have only a tenth of their current buzz and value if they were coming from an unknown brand, even if that unknown company were better qualified in the category.

So how can Google’s story help you with your business? The first thing it says is to set an inspiring and badly needed vision/mission for your business, however large or small it may be. Make sure people really want what you’re offering them. Then, become better at delivering it than your competitors, because they will try to copy you.

Then, build your brand:

Create a compelling promise that asserts your leadership

Design it beautifully verbally and visually

Work diligently to deliver on your promise. Emphasis on the word “work”. Brands don’t become great because of beautiful design or catchy phrasing. They become great because companies DELIVER great product and service experiences that live up to their brand promise: their cause, you might say.

If you let people down on your promise, you’ll be worse off.

Once you’ve delivered great experiences, you will have earned the right to branch into other categories and geographies. You’ll be afforded product and/or service trial (and even forgiveness if you stumble) where before, you wouldn’t even be considered.

Does this happen overnight? No. Does great branding replace great business strategy and value delivery? No. But it does take great companies to new heights. And gives them a huge club to walk around with.

What do YOU think?