Brand's Best Friend

Once the hard work of establishing a brand platform is complete, the even harder work begins. For a newly developed brand to really take off, an organization’s employees need to become brand ambassadors. They need to live and breathe the brand platform to ensure that the integrity of that brand is maintained as they implement it both internally and externally.

So what does that mean, anyway?

Every detail counts: tone of voice, the words you use, your attitude. As your company’s most valuable asset, your brand should be clear, strong and identifiable. The only way to establish that kind of presence is by consistently reinforcing your message through all outlets of communication. The first step to becoming a world-class brand is to transform your staff into a league of dedicated brand ambassadors.

Consistency Is Key
Grooming brand ambassadors begins with a deep understanding of your brand. What is your brand personality? What does your brand promise its consumers? What is the essence of your brand? The answers to these questions guide all modes of brand message delivery. Whether you are well-established or up-and-coming, each individual at your company may have a different idea about what is most important to your brand, so to get everyone on the same page, some hard and fast rules must be established.

Brady Communications helped answer these questions for Wesley Spectrum, a nonprofit organization in western Pennsylvania that provides education, mental health and social services. Wesley Spectrum’s wide range of services and diverse clientele presented a challenge: many different organizational units speak to different audiences, and audience segments receive communications from multiple operational areas, causing the Wesley Spectrum brand to be represented inconsistently. Even though their message must be targeted to each group, it still has to consistently convey the essence of the brand in order to be effective.

To help employees speak with the same voice from all touchpoints, Brady Communications defined the Wesley Spectrum brand more clearly and created a brand book. The book defined “brand” and why it was so important in helping Wesley Spectrum reach out to more individuals and families in need. It also articulated the brand platform, outlined a messaging framework that provided key topics and important proof points about Wesley Spectrum’s many services, and explained the appropriate tone of voice that aligned with the brand’s personality. Brady Communications also explored Wesley Spectrum’s different audience segments, addressing what those different groups want from Wesley Spectrum and what the key messaging should be for each.

The Wesley Spectrum brand book introduced some clarity and organization, not to mention powerful, effective language, into the organization’s brand. With these new tools, employees and stakeholders could synchronize their vocabularies, attitudes and tone of voice when it came to articulating the brand.

Time May Change You
If your brand has undergone an extensive rebrand or identity shift, it is increasingly important to teach employees how to represent “the new you.” When a brand changes, the way it is discussed and represented must also change, and forcing this shift in dialogue may require some extra effort on the part of brand managers and internal marketing teams.

Through a rebranding project for Communifx, Brady Communications gave the promotional marketing company all the necessary tools to build a strong, clear brand. After the creative process was complete, the work in getting companywide buy-in began. Communifx held a launch event to introduce the new identity and get employees in tune with the restructured brand. At the event, employees received the new brand standards, copies of updated literature and even athletic apparel with the logo printed on it. They also viewed a presentation about the rebranding process, enabling them to understand the meaning and thought process behind the new logo and brand messaging. Even though it was a new look and a different approach to marketing, employees could better communicate the brand to clients because they had some first-hand experience and in-depth knowledge about the brand’s culture.

Items of Importance
Without consistent messaging and implementation, your brand – no matter how profitable it is or how much market share it holds – will never reach its full potential. And without vehicles to drive your brand messaging, you will continue to spin your wheels. To be an effective brand ambassador, keep these things in mind:

Clarity. Be simple. Be consistent. If you do, no one will be confused about your brand’s promise or what to expect when they buy into it.
Distinctive language. It is not enough to be a unique brand; the language that describes your brand must stand out as well.
A good personality. Part of the brand development process should always be to identify what your brand personality is and what it is not. By translating that personality into a tone of voice – whether bubbly and sweet or dedicated and proficient – you’ll make sure your brand ambassadors are never at a loss for words.
Live it and breathe it, from the top down. Every employee, from the CEO to the receptionist, needs to understand the brand and embody it in their day-to-day dealings with other employees, customers and vendors.
Reinforcement. From time to time, everyone needs a gentle nudge to be reminded of the heart of the brand. Make sure you’re providing this reinforcement companywide so that all systems run on full-brand-throttle.