Reading Time: 4 minutesAsk the internet for the difference between brand culture vs company culture and the consensus seems to be that organisational or company culture looks inward, while brand culture focuses on how customers and other stakeholders experience the brand. Frankly, there’s a bit more to it than that. Company culture brings structure Company culture tends to […]
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Perspectives
Understanding brand storytelling
Reading Time: 4 minutes A brand is as strong as its storytelling, and the business that it supports. By understanding brand storytelling as a whole – what it is, how it aligns with the business objectives and where you currently are in that storyline – marketers can get out in front of short-term communication objectives and better understand and […]
What defines a brand culture?
Reading Time: 5 minutesEvery strategy lives or dies on its ability to be delivered effectively by motivated people. What defines a brand culture are the principles and ideas needed for the people working within that brand to make their brand strategy work. Culture is the enabler of strategy That may strike some as counterintuitive. Culture is often described […]
What makes for a successful brand strategy?
Reading Time: 11 minutesA recurrent question we receive is this: “I’m not a marketer. What is brand strategy, and why should I be interested?” It stems from two things: a narrow definition of what brand is and how it applies to business; and a lack of understanding as to why brand strategy matters. Our view is that a […]
Articulation: Step 5 in communicating a purposeful culture
Reading Time: 6 minutesAt some point, a brand culture that is serious about what it intends must put those intentions in writing. That’s about a lot more than documentation. Articulating what you come to work for collectively amounts to a stated commitment. So many companies squander this opportunity. They market what is happening internally rather than explaining it. […]
From brand culture to brand delivery community
Reading Time: 5 minutesToday, as people work together in a range of configurations, the implications for culture are complicating. We’ve been thinking about this in terms of how these evolving arrangements affect brand culture. Increasingly, we believe organisations with devolved and distributed workforces are going to need to function less as a singular brand culture and more as […]
15 success elements to include on your Brand Report Card
Reading Time: 7 minutesDespite appearances, brands are complex. They exist to be quickly and easily recognised, and yet the work required to make them perform effectively is considerable and diverse. So how do you know if your brand is up to scratch? Here are the elements we recommend you include on your Brand Report Card. The purpose of […]
Proving brand effectiveness: Five success criteria for brands
Reading Time: 6 minutesIf you’re responsible for growing a brand, what are you trying to achieve? What does success look like? Some measure awareness. Others look at penetration. Or campaign results. But here are the five success criteria for brands that we look to use to judge progress over time and for proving brand effectiveness. Our five success […]
Telling your whole brand story
Reading Time: 6 minutesEven the phrase “brand story” implies one thing. A single artefact. But the story of a brand comes together in more than just one piece of text. Telling your whole brand story is cumulative: a series of stories, told in different ways, to different audiences. In point of fact, the best brand stories are an […]
Motivation: Step 4 in activating a purposeful culture
Reading Time: 6 minutesThere’s a temptation to believe that the sheer logic of a good decision will sway the crowd; that if you make a good case and present it in an inspiring way, you’ve done everything you need to for that idea to gain instant uptake in an organisational culture. We’ve yet to see that happen successfully. […]
How to develop a brand positioning strategy
Reading Time: 12 minutesThe purpose of a brand positioning strategy is to identify the particular place in the market you want to dominate and where you can best deliver value. To do that, you need to mean something specific to customers. And to establish clear space between where you are and where others sit in the market. This […]
Your guide to a successful brand language audit
Reading Time: 11 minutesBefore you make changes to how you express your brand verbally, it’s important to understand how you talk now, how others speak and how customers think about what you offer. A brand language audit will help you accomplish all that. It’s the first step to understanding why – or even if – your language should […]