No brand zones

It is no news that brand needs to be owned equally across the company. And while that is a great move in the right direction, what isn’t happening is the brand being executed equally across the company.

There are huge gaps in delivery of the brand and several areas in particular are virtual “no brand zones” – finance and technology. Brand is barely, if ever, considered in setting up systems and making decisions in these areas, and the results create disconnects and broken promises that impact customers and employees every day, and undermine the brand in the process.

There are of course exceptions, but those examples are largely ignored or put down to “cult organisations” that others couldn’t possibly emulate. I hear the chorus all the time saying, “brand is something for marketing to deal with, it doesn’t have anything to do with our finance systems/technology choices…”

Well, I think Virgin Blue would beg to differ – technology very much became a brand issue for them this past week!

Along those lines is a bit more food for thought. The number one cause of customer complaints at Telstra is billing. That’s a finance issue, that’s a technology issue, that’s a customer service issue, but above all of those that it’s a brand issue.

When the bill I get every month is wrong or I can’t understand it and I have to call to try and get is fixed – again, it really doesn’t matter if Helen on the other end of the phone is the nicest person in the world. There is no way I am going to have good associations with the brand.

A bill is a promise – you will get X service for Y price. When one of those things isn’t what was expected you have a broken promise. In the case of Telstra fixing the issue, it is incredibly complicated. However working to erase those no brand zones might be a good place to start.

The strongest brands connect the dots from promises to delivery and back again across the whole business. Do you have “no brand zones” in your business?

See you next week.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognise who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.