After brand definition . . . then what?

More and more, companies are realizing they must actively manage their brand promise in the market, first by defining it, then by communicating it and living it.

The brand definition process is fairly well accepted: It involves qualitative, in-depth interviews with customers and internal staff on the value an organization brings to the market, followed by an analysis of the data to develop a series of conceptual tools that define the brand. These tools become the filter for actions and decisions so that employees are clear on how to deliver on the brand's promise.

But too many times, companies go through an expensive and time-consuming branding process only to snap back to old habits. The advertising agency creates flashy creative instead of a campaign that clearly demonstrates the company's differentiation. A new vice president of marketing wants to bring a fresh approach with an "updated message" that fails to communicate how the company is living its brand. Or senior management forgets that one of its primary jobs is to use the brand as a strategic driver in developing new products and services and to guide mergers and acquisitions. As a result, employees stop using the brand tools to guide their own actions and decisions. Then you're back to square one.

Defining your brand is the easy part. Using your brand to drive actions and communications is much harder, because it requires new behaviors.

Here are five actions to take to make sure your organization lives its brand:

1. Get your team together and brainstorm five new things to do to live your brand, five things to stop doing and five things to do more of. A health-care clinic decided to upgrade its waiting room to align it with a brand promise of being welcoming; a smoothie shop decided to welcome all returning customers by name to demonstrate its brand promise of "making a personal connection."
    
2. Create a brand-at-a-glance one-page document that outlines your brand promise and informs employees and vendors how to use the brand as a filter for decisions and communications. You can make this a laminated card, a screen saver, a magnet or include it in your employee handbook.
    
3. Work your brand promise into your hiring, reviews and reward systems, so people know they will be measured by how well they live the brand. When hiring, make sure you ask questions that tell you whether the candidate can treat customers the way your brand promises. Your review process also has to make sure that it judges employees' work, at least in part, by how well they have demonstrated your company's promise.
    
4. Use company meetings and e-mails to reinforce how a big contract, win or initiative reflects your brand promise. Make the case for how change (in the form of an articulated brand promise) will make your employees' lives and careers better. Some company presidents start each weekly meeting with an anecdote about how the company demonstrated living its brand that week.
    
5. Do a customer touch-point audit to determine how well every customer contact and communication is delivering on your stated brand promise. I guarantee this will be eye-opening. One of my clients discovered that its invoices were entirely contradictory to its brand promise of "respectful."

Larger organizations may need the help of a change management consultant to get people, processes and infrastructures in alignment with the ability to deliver on a newly articulated brand promise. But smaller, entrepreneurial companies typically can do it on their own. The important thing is to not leave living your brand up to chance, but to manage your brand promise delivery as well as you manage your receivables.

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