Brand Thinking
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Connect With Customers, Brand and Culture
Leaders should think of their brand like a flag or a badge. A brand is a way to deliver a message that they want other people to absorb and embrace. And a big leadership lesson is that just because a message that you personally created resonates with you, it does not mean that it will resonate with others.
Company Focus: Brand and Culture
For decades, brands were pushed down to customers. The company had all the control, and customers were, for the most part, passive. That's not the case anymore. Companies no longer have that amount of control. Company leadership can’t decide unilaterally what a brand is going to look like, what it's going to stand for, what that message is going to be. Now any number of people, both internally and externally, most of whom the company doesn’t control, are going to be contributing to that process along the way.
Brand Culture: The Power of Co-Creation with Ken Meyers
How do you make getting your employees to live out your brand and culture a “want-to-do” instead of a “supposed-to-do” for your team? Ruth Lund, President of the Legacy Center, Meghan Lynch, CEO of Six-Point Creative, and Ken Meyers, founder of the Smartfood brand, discuss how to successfully develop a culture of advocacy instead of a culture of compliance.
Company Mission Statement: Action, Not Ideas
As Ken said, “You can write anything down, you can think anything up, but if it is not followed through on, if it is not really injected into the blood of the organization, such that it becomes a living, breathing mission, a living, breathing set of mile markers and guard rails, that everyone has absorbed internalized and cleaved to then it's up no real value.”
Employee Branding Strategy: The Human Element
In a transparent and interconnected world, the people in your organization are critical contributors to (or potential detractors of) your brand messaging. Meghan Lynch, CEO of Six-Point Creative, and Ken Meyers, president of Panorama Foods, discussed the benefits and pitfalls of the human element of brand building.
Brand Reputation: Culture is Credibility
Where do brand and culture intersect? Ken Meyers, creator of the Smartfood popcorn brand, talked to Meghan Lynch, CEO of Six-Point, and Ruth Lund, President of the Legacy Center, about culture as the credibility backing up a brand promise. Meyers thinks of brand as essentially a promise to the marketplace, to the prospect of constituents, and a company's culture is the credibility behind that promise. As Ken said, “you can say whatever you want to, but if your company's activities, behavior, and attitudes run counter to that brand promise, it's going to be seen, and it's going to chip away at the credibility behind what you're trying to get people to believe and follow.”
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