Spark #01 – Firing up your biggest brand cheerleaders
It’s no secret that engaged employees make powerful brand ambassadors.
It goes far beyond marketing and communications teams. These roles naturally require them to be more brand savvy.
But every colleague represents your organisation and plays a part in telling the world your brand story – so it’s important they tell the right one. Get them geared up and equip them with the right tools and internal brand advocates can help a business soar.
So why leave such a powerful pool untapped?
What’s in a brand?
A brand is made up of so many shiny components. It comes alive in everything. A reflection of why your organisation exists and everything it wants to be. Present in every customer and colleague touchpoint. Going far beyond logos, brand palettes and typefaces.
As internal communicators we pour so much time into inspiring colleagues to live and breathe our organisation’s purpose. Proudly upholding our values and behaviours, dazzling colleagues, customers and the world with the story of who we are as an organisation and what we stand for. It’s the finer details of a brand we sometimes overlook.
We stifle an internal groan as a colleague redesigns the PowerPoint template, gets a little too creative with their email signature, or tries to bring back 90s clipart.
It’s these small actions that collectively rewrite the story we’re telling – no matter how unintentional.
So how do you empower colleagues who aren’t fluent in Adobe software, logomarks and typefaces to utilise your visual identity correctly?
It’s a challenge our clients come to us with often.
Starting with the why
A global pharmaceutical company, who we partner with, were facing the challenge that colleagues around the globe were interpreting their brand identity in their own ways. Employees were taking creative licence with elements that were too important to be tampered with.
They needed to reset and inspire colleagues to fall in love with the company brand all over again. And with an organisation working to answer unmet medical needs around the world, there was no shortage of employee pride to build on.
So we partnered with them to deliver a series of Brand 101s – interactive workshops getting right to the heart of why a brand is important and exactly what it means for the organisation.
While interactive workshops aren’t particularly ground-breaking, it was the perfect safe space for colleagues to share what they found tricky, be reinspired by their proud heritage and brand story, and have fun through gamification.
Colleagues were fired up and ready to use the brand in the right way. And the company had a ready-built workshop they could rollout whenever they needed to.
Do you have a brand holy grail?
Making a brand identity digestible
Brand guidelines are the holy grail for design or brand teams. And it’s easy to share them with creative agencies and like-minded folk so you can trust they’ll execute your brand identity brilliantly. But a manual of all things brand can make even the most engaged or tech-savvy colleagues recoil in defeat.
Our friends at pladis recently unveiled their refreshed brand and wanted colleagues around the world to rally behind it, take ownership over it and bring it to life across the business.
So we took their meticulously-crafted guidelines and distilled them into a short and sweet little book of brand. A handy pocket guide deliberately crafted for non-designers that anyone can pick up and understand exactly why pladis rebranded, what the new brand stands for and how they can play their part in embedding it across the business.
The result? The change is happening as we write. Colleagues are leaping into action to update their branded materials. And early feedback tells us they’re very excited about the new identity and what it means for the business. pladis can emerge into the world in all their beautiful new brand glory, supported by a powerful base of brand ambassadors united behind one cohesive story.
Sound all too familiar?
Need to motivate your colleagues to be proud brand ambassadors? Looking to empower them with the tools to make it easy? We’re all ears – and we’d love to help.
Because when you get everyone nailing the basics, you’ll truly unlock the power of your internal brand ambassadors.
The Spark of an idea, a feeling, a sense, a curiosity.
It’s the best catalyst for creativity, connection and breakthrough thinking.
This is your weekly spark – who knows what it might ignite for you.
Insights and Resources
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