Brand Assessment Tool

Use this prescriptive self-assessment tool to evaluate your organization from a Branding perspective. Rate your compliance with best practices across the following dimensions: Brand Strategy, Brand Alignment, Brand Communication, and Brand Execution. Once you have completed the assessment, you will immediately be provided with results and recommendations for improvement.

Communicating Social Values Improves Brand

Fortune 500 companies have recognized significant benefits by successfully promoting civic virtues such as Sustainability, Community, Sponsorship, Charity, and Environment. Although benefits like improved brand integrity are intangible, they can have a significant impact on a company’s long-term success. Increase brand value by developing a communication plan for the organization’s social values.

What is Social Value Messaging?

Social Value Messaging demonstrates alignment of corporate goals with those of the organizations key stakeholders such as customers, employees, and partners. Social Value Messaging programs are not sunk costs, but rather, should be viewed as investments in corporate health.

Following are categories of Social Value Programs:

• Sustainability
• Community
• Sponsorship
• Charity
• Environment

Follow the Lead of Apple and Don’t Get Burned When You Rebrand

 (Courtesy of Apple.com)

 

The iPhone is one product that has helped Apple redefine itself

Few undertakings are as crucial and potentially disastrous for a business than rebranding. The temptation for senior management to freshen a company’s identity may be an emotional decision, not unlike a car enthusiasts urge to purchase the new Ford Mustang when it first hits the lot. After a while, what you look at from day to day can appear stale even though it’s working just fine.

The danger in a rush to make changes to a corporate identity lies in the number of ways rebranding can backfire. Not only is it a costly exercise, it has the inherent risk of losing customers.

“Marketers and corporate executives get consumed with what they would ultimately like the company to be versus the position it can reasonably attain in the marketplace at the present time,” says Galen de Young, the managing director of Michigan-based Francis SEO. “Unless everyone throughout the organization understands and delivers on the promises implied by your rebranding, not much will change. In fact, you’ll probably do more damage than good.”

Bottom Line: Rebranding can suck the momentum out of your company. So, why even bother?

Rebranding Worked for Apple, Vegas

Well, the payoffs can be massive. Just think of corporations like Apple, which went from niche computer maker to mainstream entertainment giant. Or ponder how Steve Wynn led Las Vegas to change its public image as a seedy town of vices to a Disneyland for grownups, where taboo is okay.

Rebranding will work, if you do it properly. One of the first decisions you’ll need to make as a company is deciding who should be in charge of your rebranding efforts. As John Follett, a research analyst at Demand Metric points out, businesses should “build a cross-functional team of 3-6 key executives that can represent each of your brand constituencies, including customers.”

The management advisory firm dedicated to building practical tools and delivering best practices to sales and marketing executives in mid-sized enterprises has created a Branding Selection Tool which presents a checklist of items that must be discussed and agreed upon before an overhaul in the corporate image is made.

“The tools are just a start,” says Jesse Hopps, a research analyst at Demand Metric. “We have a team of representatives who can guide our clients through the process. When you rebrand a company or a product you can’t do it in a box. The corporate image is fragile and steps must be followed prudently when retooling it.”

Read more about Achieving Brand Consensus and Establishing a Brand Scorecard at Demand Metric.