Few corporate symbols are as ubiquitous as a cup of coffee with the Starbucks insignia or the McDonald's "Golden Arches." In instances like these, brand images serve as a
common language that transcends the boundaries of corporate America and evokes the same positive feelings among consumers the world over. And, according to the 2006
BusinessWeek/Interbrand "Best Global Brands" survey, the usual heavyweights - Coca-Cola, Microsoft and IBM - round out the top three, underscoring the impact brand,
identity and reputation can have on bottom-line results.
Given the relevance of brand to the entire company's identity and success, it is often difficult to pin the responsibility of fostering brand strength to one corporate
department. True, the CEO is at the literal helm, but it's the behind-the-scenes stewards of the brand - the communicators - who ensure messages connect with all stakeholder
groups and convey a unified, desirable image with which consumers want to identify.
To reach these lofty goals, communications executives should focus on three challenges that, if overcome, will develop, maintain and promote a strong corporate brand:
1. Aligning messaging to be consistent across all constituents, including consumers, investors and employees
2. Integrating communications efforts with those of marketing and public relations to form a cohesive function
3. Moving away from bought-messaging to earned-messaging to help foster longevity
Message Alignment
Schizophrenic messaging is not a good thing. It sounds obvious, but consider this: Big corporations have a lot of people to communicate with, and organization-wide goals can
be lost in translation between interactions with consumer audiences and, say, investors. Since telling each group what it wants to hear isn't a good plan, communications
executives must develop one message for everyone and imbed it into every branding effort. For Johnson & Johnson, for example, that message is all about the company's
responsibility as a caregiver to other caregivers (be they doctors, mothers, etc.), and this emanates from all of their brands. Remarkably, the company has thus established its
strong brand and reputation not on pharmaceuticals, which are a significant revenue source, but on ... well, babies.
For Southwest Airlines, the message is simple: Travel can - and should - be fun. [Note: The BusinessWeek/Interbrand list does not include airlines because it's too hard
to separate their brands' impact on sales from factors such as routes and schedules.] That attitude is conveyed through the airline's focus on defining its brand and reputation
through its employees by making them integral to all messaging efforts.
"We must provide the level of knowledge and information that allows our employees to act like owners," Southwest SVP of corporate communications, Ginger Hardage, said in an
April 2006 speech, "and we must nurture our corporate culture so employees understand how their behavior contributes to how our organizations are judged."
But if the challenge is aligning messaging across all constituent communications, then the solution lies in the next step: integrating communications.
Integrated Communications
"A house divided by itself cannot stand," says Steve Cody, managing partner of New York-based Peppercom.
It's a sagacious statement, for sure, and its implication for the corporate communications function is this: It's time for the dividing wall between corpcomm and marketing to
come tumbling down, because such fragmentation does not foster strong brands and reputation.
Integrating the efforts of these functions is integral to brand health, as communications executives should be catalysts for the actions that marketers execute. When the
efforts of these two groups don't add up to one, so to speak, the result can be catastrophic.
"If [corporate communications executives and marketers] are saying something different, then all you have on your hands is a mess," says Mike Paul, president and senior
counselor of MGP & Associates PR. "But integration is not going to work unless there are incentives."
For Southwest, the incentive is survival in a business climate that has been more than turbulent for many airlines in recent years. However, the airline has experienced
success with a strong reputation - and revenue - in part thanks to its commitment to integrating communications, PR and marketing.
"It's not about a turf war," says Southwest VP of public relations and community affairs, Linda Rutherford. "It's not saying, 'I want your budget;' it's saying, 'Can we help
with what you are doing?'"
An example of this integrated approach to communications and branding is Southwest's widely publicized blog (http://www.blogsouthwest.com) that is owned by PR to compliment the Web site, which is co-maintained by the marketing and technology
departments. Both tools help convey Southwest's reputation as fun-loving and transparent, and the brand thrives accordingly.
"There is always a seat for us [at the other departments' tables]," Rutherford says. "We [marketing, PR and corporate communications officers] all participate in each other's
strategy sessions. But it is a constant effort."
Bought-Messaging vs. Earned-Messaging
For the corporations that frequent the "Best Global Brands," Interbrand CEO John Allert said in an appearance on CNN that success is not all about strong revenue numbers: "We
need brands that have a very strong franchise with consumers. It's a combination of numerical factors and marketing factors. We look at the degree of resonance that consumers
have with a particular brand proposition."
True to those factors, Mary Minnick, head of marketing, strategy and innovation at Coca-Cola (and noted "Queen of Pop" in an August 7 BusinessWeek profile) takes an
aggressive stance on communicating Coke's brand to the public, but for her company - and many others on the Best Brands list - an interesting dichotomy is brought to light: A
strong brand isn't always attached to bottom-line success. For example, Coke topped the chart in the survey but has been stumbling in revenue recently, having missed the boat
with the bottled-water and energy-drink craze. Nevertheless, Coke's success has been built on a strong message that speaks across demographics and generations, allowing its
reputation as the world's soda of choice to shine through the holes in its earnings.
However, such a modis operandi won't last forever. Mike Paul points to Coke's - and many top brand performers' - history of "purchasing" messaging success by funneling huge
amounts of money into corporate advertising. The future, he suggests, rests on a transformation to earned messaging, where communications executives (and their hopefully-now-
integrated marketing counterparts) evoke a strong emotional connection with constituents by not just talking the talk via advertising, but through an identity and reputation built
on telling a product's story through the end user. Then, according to Cody, communications and PR executives will have time to focus on the fourth fundamental requirement - that
is, "Walking the walk."
Contact: Steve Cody, 212.931.6114, [email protected]; Mike Paul, 212.595.8500, [email protected]; Linda
Rutherford, [email protected]