About these Authors
Johnnie Moore is a marketing consultant and facilitator based in London. As well as 20 years of marketing experience he's trained in psychotherapy, NLP and Improv. Find out more at his blog.
Andrew Lark's more than 18 years experience of all facets of marketing, branding, sales and communications spans technology, Internet, telecommunications and consumer sectors. There he has led award-winning programs and teams for brands such as Dell, Sony, SBC, IDSoftware, Nortel, Microsoft and Sun. He is a thought leader and innovator on the convergence of brands, communications and social networking technologies. Find out more at his blog.
Jennifer Rice is a strategist and evangelist for relationship-centric brands. She brings 15 years experience in brand strategy, customer insight and marketing communications, and has worked with companies such as Microsoft, Verizon, Alcatel and Corning. Her current passion is exploring how brands are being impacted by blogs and other social technologies. Her company blog is What's Your Brand Mantra?
John Winsor is the author of Beyond the Brand: Why Listening to the Right Customers is Essential to Winning in Business and the Founder/CEO of Radar Communications, a consumer-centric consultancy. You can find out more about him at Beyond the Brand.
Jennifer Rice
Andy Lark
Johnnie Moore
John Winsor
1. Edward Cotton on March 28, 2005 12:41 AM writes...
Speaking as an employee of a communications agency, I agree with the statement. It's becoming increasingly important to brand internally, but many of the efforts to date are pretty token "let's put some posters up in the cafe", kind of thing.
I think agencies should be doing something, but they need experts to work with.
Any suggestions?
Permalink to Comment2. Johnnie Moore on March 28, 2005 02:18 AM writes...
Interesting blog now added to my aggregator. I agree with Edward, a lot of internal branding I see consists of rather awful, supposedly inspirational messages dotted around the buildings. Command and control remains the underlying ethos most of the time.
Permalink to Comment3. Regina Miller on March 28, 2005 09:26 AM writes...
Glad to connect with you all. Appreciate the comments and feedback. I am not sure how many agencies ever hire/consult HR types at the beginning of a project just to sort through and outline all of the organizational implications. (I actually was considered for a role like this at a small division of Euro RSG but in the end it couldn't be justified with the client at the beginning of the project - but if not then - when?? It's already too late.) Anyway, I have been able to create some unique partnerships with agencies - more to come in my upcoming blogs on this...
Permalink to Comment4. Deb on March 28, 2005 11:49 AM writes...
Speaking as someone in marketing at an HR solutions firm, I frequently find myself concerned with pieces produced and distributed by our HR department. And some of my least favorites are those supposed inspirational messages hanging in the break room. (Is it really a mission statement just because HR says it is?)
The worst, though, are employment ads that run externally. They use different, multi-colored, bolded fonts to emphasize words like 'fun' to describe the ideal candidate.
I agree with comments made on Johnnie's blog. I do think that internal branding (for lack of a better term) can help build up the culture of the company, and lead to a natural extention of that brand into the outside world. (Not all on it's own, of course.)
I'll be interested to see if/how HR begins to use branding, and will be looking for any hints on how to get them to see the light.
All the best!
deb
Permalink to Comment5. ronbo on March 28, 2005 11:37 PM writes...
I recently consulted on a high-profile pitch for a large financial services account. My agency client covered every base, every brand touchpoint - including internal. The client went with a smaller firm that didn't present a global brand vision but had (I hate to admit it) better creative.
Moral: believe it or not, strategic failures aren't always the agency's fault.
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