Build a brand, and not just a logo, by getting the C-suite involved

Your executive team is a key stakeholder group in any rebrand process. The key here is to include them and to follow a strategic process. Why? Because you can't solve big brand fragmentation challenges just by having a team work on the tactics – a new logo, or a new website. Robin Tooms interviews Chris Levy, Global Marketing Director at Quest Integrity, for ways to keep this process on track.

Robin: Hello and welcome to this edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies. I am Robin Tooms, VP of Strategy at Savage Brands, and my guest again is Chris Levy, Global Marketing Director at Quest Integrity. So, Chris, thank you again for being back on Brandonomics.

Chris: Thank you.

Robin: Well, I’m glad that you’re back because you get to share a little bit of advice. So, you’ve recently been through a rebrand effort at Quest Integrity, and I think you would probably have some good advice to share for other business leaders out there that are kind of struggling with some of their own brand fragmentation challenges right now. So, where would you tell them to start this process?

Chris: Certainly. First and foremost, I would say start with the executive team (Robin: Please.). Mainly, the Chairman, the CEO. It’s critical that you have that person’s buy-in from the beginning, as well as the rest of the senior management team. Without that buy-in, you’re likely going to run into some hurdles and challenges that are either going to derail you several months into your process, if not, you know cancel the whole program all together. So, getting their buy-in up front and understanding why it’s important is key to kick the process off, I think, to begin with. Then, I think it’s important for the marketers to really understand what the business goals are for the enterprise as a whole. You know, “what are those goals, what are those challenges, where does the executive team see the enterprise headed in the future?” So, a lot of times that takes place during the stakeholder engagement.

So, making sure that you involve those key stakeholders both internally, to understand those challenges, as well as, again, where the senior management team sees the enterprise headed, and where they see the organization today through their eyes. So, you get a bit of that vision for the internal view, and then interviewing those key stakeholders externally. Customers, not just customers that you think are in love with you, that are going to tell you what you want to hear, but also some of those valued customers that you may have had challenges with. Because aligning both of those stakeholder groups is going to give you some of those gaps that you know you need to fill when you’re working through that process.

Robin: So that process, which I appreciate, sounds really good, and I’m thinking somewhere along the line in there, one of those senior leadership team members is going to say, no, no, no, we don’t need to go through this process. What would you say to those that are trying to just jump right in feet first, and not go through a process like that.

Chris: The process is critical to success. A lot of times people do want to jump right into tactics and say, ok, well we’ve decided to change our brand, so let’s just jump in and do a logo (Robin: Redo the website.), right, do the website, do a logo, and I think that’s a natural state, especially in the business-to-business or industrial marketplace. We’re filled with organizations of doers. We like to get things done, jump right in with both hands, and that’s a great thing, but what happens too often when you skip the process, and really, fully understand where you’re headed, how the market sees you, and have that ability to then fill in those gaps, you really lose that ability to properly design the brand promise, and then therefore the messaging that’s going to help take you where you want to go.

Robin: Right, so jumping right in could get you, say, a new logo, but it’s not going to get you a real valuable brand.

Chris: Exactly. Exactly, and that logo, and some of that messaging may be at odds with what your brand promise is, or where the actual goals of the business may be in the long run.

Robin: I appreciate you sharing that. I think you just saved several marketers, and several companies out there, a lot of heartache.

Chris: Thank you, Robin.

Robin: Thank you. This has been another edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies.