Branding gets personnel touch
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Companies are tapping into the personal branding skills of their employees, made possible by the explosion of social media platforms, to inject their brands with personality and respond better to consumer demands.
Comedian Stephen Fry, who has more than a million followers on Twitter, stated last month that the appeal of the social media site is that it is “human shaped, not business shaped”.
Fry is not the only one to have picked up on the importance of bringing out the personal aspect from the corporate. When Sony Ericsson launched its Xperia handset last month, it boasted that it would offer a “human” experience to consumers.
Now the idea of getting personal has reached the marketing strategy. Companies are looking to learn from the techniques that people use to brand themselves and are applying these to businesses. The aim is to create more individuality and to make companies stand out from the crowd.
AOL president of global advertising and strategy Jeff Levick explains: “Brands must rely on the intelligence and natural ability of their employees to help them associate with audiences. They must embrace the potential of staff who have made a name for themselves in their own time and use this to enhance their products. Consumers are demanding this sort of connection.”
Lowe Worldwide deputy chairman Kevin Allen adds: “The way that marketing works has had to change to actively celebrate individuality. The industry isn’t purely about supply any more, it now centres around demand. So we need ‘brand me’ to provide high-value ideas and craftsmanship – this is essential to the new concept of ‘brand citizenship’.”
The concept of “brand me” traditionally requires people to treat their own lifestyle as a brand, driven by self-promotion, smart strategy and shaping positive perceptions of themselves. With digital marketing now enabling people to do this better through search engine optimisation, blogs and social media, corporate marketers are trying to adopt some of these techniques in their businesses.
With so much pressure in boardrooms to stand out from the competition, harnessing some of the skills learned in personal branding can help keep things fresh. By monitoring how employees build their personal brands, for example through the use of Twitter, to react to problems or issues, companies can learn how they can better respond to consumer demands.
Richard Baker, a general manager at Virgin Trains, freely admits that he is happy with staff members using their Twitter accounts to help customers with issues. When people contact him about Virgin, he takes the approach that “I don’t keep my head down. It’s my job to listen to customers” – even on his own Twitter account, which does not take a corporate tone.
But isn’t Baker concerned that it will confuse consumers if staff members bring their own personality to the brand on Twitter? He says not, stating that the senior team are largely trusted to do the right thing and they can always ask for help if they’re worried. For him, using personal voices on Twitter helps humanise the transport brand.
Daniel Dumoulin, co-founder and director of consultancy Sundance, says: “‘Brand me’ is pivotal to facing these challenges and keeping up with the real-time pressures that can occur from backlash anywhere at any time.”
Enthusiasm and expertise
Just as “brand me” sees individuals demonstrating enthusiasm and expertise in certain interests and activities, it can also be used by companies to change behaviour and get to the root of a problem. One way of doing this is to use ethnographic principles – taking insight from employees’ own methods of demonstrating their personal brand and applying it to the business world. Companies such as Vodafone do this to engage with audiences online, getting staff to create video diaries on social media platforms, much as they might in their out-of-work lives.
LBi creative director Simon Gill says his agency uses some of the same techniques. “We ask team members to keep diaries, make films of their activities, let others shadow them or educate them in an interest or activity.
“This really helps to get through to the real challenge and makes insight feel far more real and meaningful. Often we’ll get a fantastic idea from one observation or comment that would never have occurred to the creative team working in a more traditional manner.”
This is similar to the approach that professional rugby player Kenny Logan took before setting up Logan Sports Marketing, and continues to be used by staff within agencies to this day (see Iris and Publicis viewpoints, below). Logan took the skills he picked up in promoting his own brand to sponsors as a professional sportsman and now uses this to develop briefs for clients.
“Leading companies like Best Buy admit that they look to hire marketers who have more than 250 Twitter followers as a sign to show they can carry influence and communicate to wide audiences.”
Similarly, agencies are harnessing the expertise of their staff to build on ideas and broaden initial briefs into engaging products (see below).
Cast-iron relationship: Athlete Lucy Naylor uses her personal branding skills to help her work as a director on the Adidas account
Dan Schawbel, personal branding expert for consultancy Gen-Y, argues that this shift in marketing is necessary to keep brand reputations intact. “Corporate brands are being forced to become more like people – personal brands – because engagement is required in a world where technology bridges the gap between brand awareness and brand experience. Therefore, employees are being empowered to make a difference like never before. Even your intern can have a powerful impact now,” he says.
But humanising brands and giving your staff this level of power can backfire. Earlier this year, trendy furniture retailer Habitat blamed an “overenthusiastic intern” for an attempt to use the election protests in Iran as a promotional vehicle on Twitter. It caused an outcry among Twitter users, and the reputation of the retailer took a major hit. The intern – who had a Twitter account and was considered influential in social media – used irrelevant hashtags including “#Mousavi”, referring to an Iranian presidential candidate.
Mutual respect
There is also the danger that in focusing too heavily on personal elements, executives could end up wielding too much power or becoming larger than the brand itself. Media Planning Group (MPG) strategy director Dan Hagen says: “The challenge is to find a compatibility. There needs to be a mutual respect, so that the brand does not become you and you don’t become the brand. It’s vital that you maintain a degree of empathy and understanding while maintaining the core things that come from ‘brand me’.”
One way of achieving this is to take the “brand me” techniques and turn them into “brand we” when putting together a brand strategy. For example, TMI, a consultancy that is part of the Cello Group, is working with all of Eurostar’s staff to create a consistent brand framework that everyone interprets together (see case study, below).
“Brand me” principles don’t always translate effectively into marketing, however. EDF Energy’s ad for its Green Britain Day initiative, featuring a Union Jack made up of different shades of green fabric, was criticised by some consumers as being a form of greenwashing. The ad, which ran on TV, press, outdoor and online, was developed by a green enthusiast at Euro RSCG London and was placed by MPG.
Personal crusade: Tom Ewart used his mother’s experience as a social worker to develop a campaign for the Children’s Workforce Development Council
MPG’s Hagen adds: “Good and bad came from that campaign and you have to learn from that. Without doubt, this cultural change is necessary. It’s simply that with so little control over your brands, you have to be particularly careful how you take inspiration from ‘brand me’ and introduce it to a strategic business.”
But Fred Burt, managing director of brand consultancy Siegel & Gale, cautions: “It should be ‘brand us’, not ‘brand me’. Apply your own principles in a way that is relevant and credible, not derivative of personal branding. Remember that you’re not the boss this time. Credibility, reliability and differentiation is the trinity that all CEOs want; you can’t let your ego stand in the way of that.”
Alarm bells
So what are brands, agencies and brand consultancies looking for from employees? How much of a “brand me” philosophy do you need to make it into the industry? Richard Welch, co-founder of consultancy Lowe Counsel, says: “It’s important that you can show awareness and understanding of the new environment we live in. It raises alarm bells if you don’t. It’s no longer just about skills and qualification; now it’s about the size of your online network. The onus is on you to prove how you market yourself, or else how will you market a brand?”
Leading companies like Best Buy admit that they look to hire marketers who have more than 250 Twitter followers as a sign to show they can carry influence and communicate to wide audiences. According to AMD chief marketing officer Nigel Dessau, the use of personal interaction via social media makes AMD “more approachable and friendly” than its competitors.
Similarly, agencies try to take this approach to their recruitment methods in order to ensure their work reflects the approach consumers have come to expect from brands. Euro RSCG chief executive Russ Lidstone says: “Marketing is less ego-centric than it was before. It’s no longer about who can come up with the best slogan, but much more about humility and good content. Real-time experts who do it for themselves are able to bring that to consumer-facing marketing.”
Jason Goodman, chief executive at Albion, adds that he demands new recruits have a “fascination with technology” that will help them navigate their way through marketing technology. He comments: “It’s different to the advertising of yesteryear in that they are making things happen for brands using tools that have made things happen for them.”
The ideal for all employers involved in marketing is to find people who are skilled at reapplying the marketing process they use on themselves to products. The key is to make sure that they do it in a subtle way that shows off their skills without forcing themselves on the brand in the way established personalities like Richard Branson do when promoting their brand networks (see Dos and Don’ts, below).
What is evident is that the concepts of marketing have changed over the decades and with a new one just around the corner, “brand me” will become a core driving force in the way that audiences receive marketing in the years to come. It appears that being more human in marketing communications is not just a fad.
As Adrian Brady, chief executive of Eulogy! PR says, those who fail to see the potential of “brand me” skills as a serious business tool will ultimately fall behind competitors. He predicts that those businesses failing to pick up on the trend will have “stunted development and their bottom lines will inevitably suffer”.
Ads utilising brand me
Johnson & Johnson launched its “Thanks, Mom” campaign in July 2008 to promote its sponsorship of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. It was the skincare company’s first sponsorship of the Olympics and it wanted to find a way of promoting this beyond simple naming rights, using athletes such as swimmer Michael Phelps.
Staff at Lowe Worldwide thought this could be achieved by considering who they thank for their successes – their mothers – and pitched the idea to the company, which ran with the concept throughout the games.
Lowe Worldwide deputy chairman Kevin Allen says: “This campaign came from putting ourselves in Olympians’ shoes and thinking who we’d want to thank for our victories. It isn’t self-promoting or using erotic images, it’s just very personal and sentimental.”
Johnson & Johnson group product director Fred Tewell adds: “Behind every Olympic champion is a mum. We thank mums for the love and care they’ve provided to help their children achieve their goals.”
tck tck tck is the climate justice campaign launched by the Advertising Community Together initiative, Havas Worldwide and the Global Humanitarian Forum.
Launched as an ad campaign to lobby politicians at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this week, the use of “brand me” attitudes helped to develop it into a six-month-long pressure group.
Russ Lidstone, chief executive of Euro RSCG, explains: “A number of our staff had strong beliefs in charity and how to get them noticed. We felt this was too strong an issue to be just an advertising concept. The extension of the campaign means it really has a pressure role and gets voices heard.”
Air New Zealand’s latest ad campaign features a strapline inspired by a passenger’s Twitter post, which applauded the airline for “allowing its staff to have a personality”. The digital outdoor and online campaign, created by integrated ad agency Albion, features the strapline “Personality Allowed”.
Jason Goodman, chief executive at Albion, says: “This is a real example of ‘brand me’, because it came about as a result of our team being familiar with Twitter and knowing its potential to source ideas.
“It meant we could show them what people were saying and what to say back, rather than coming up with an idea that wasn’t anywhere near as relevant.”
Brand Me Case Study: From triathlete to sports marketer
Just as consumers are looking to associate with brands more through multiple media channels, agencies also have to recruit staff that can relate to their clients. These individuals can then use some of their personal branding skills to come up with new marketing efforts.
At agency Iris, a love of sports is a trait shared by most of the account team working on brands such as Adidas and Polar. But Adidas account director Lucy Naylor takes her personal brand insights as an athlete into her work for the sportswear brand.
Naylor recently took part in a half-ironman event. At her first race of that distance, she won in her age group and finished 9th place overall in Antwerp, Belgium on the European circuit. This means she took one of two slots in the world half-ironman championships.
“I live and breathe sport, both outside and inside work. Representing Great Britain in triathlon at age group level has seen me race at the world half-ironman championships in Florida and the ITU world triathlon championships in Australia. Out of work, my life is dedicated to triathlon - six out of seven days a week I train, twice a day, before and after work. It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning - literally,” she says.
Naylor adds that she takes this passion with her to work and uses it in her work with Adidas. “It doesn’t get better than working on an account where the clients share the same passion. Immediately there is common ground between us, a shared love.
“It’s brilliant to be able to put my passion into the work that I do, whether that be brainstorms with the creatives, writing briefs or reviewing creative work. I automatically think like the target consumer, rather than like an agency suit trying to put myself into the mindset of the consumer.”
She claims that by developing her own personal brand, this has led to benefits for Adidas, which has seen the sportswear company ask her to act as a brand ambassador. She joins its staff on runs when she visits Adidas headquarters in Germany.
“When visiting Adidas in Germany, we have often had a run on the agenda, which for me is brilliant - but I’m less sure that I’d love it if I wasn’t a sporty type.
“It’s a great way to spend some time away from a desk doing something that we all enjoy,” she says.
“I’ve even given guidance to my clients on what events they could enter or what training they should do triathlon wise. Adidas has also kindly given me sample kit to wear. It’s great sampling different gear.”
Not only does Naylor leverage her own personal brand for the use of her client, but also the branding of fellow runners at her local triathlon club. They have helped Naylor’s team at Iris develop campaigns through “recruiting actual runners to star in the ads, undertaking research, competitive evaluation of ideas or grassroots activation”.
Naylor is now about to start working on Powerade and again plans to use her sporting “brand me” as inspiration to steer her work for the client.
Brand We Case Study: Eurostar
In January next year, the EU’s decision to liberalise rail lines will mean that Eurostar may face new competition for its high-speed international rail service. Deutsche Bahn, Air France and Virgin have already expressed an interest in running services from London to mainland Europe, all seeking to cut Eurostar’s journey time.
Eurostar is not taking anything for granted and has appointed consultancy TMI to create a new brand positioning to help it embed a set of new service values and behaviours and create a consistent customer experience.
Eurostar customer service director Marc Noaro explains: “We want to make our new brand values the lifeblood of Eurostar. So we’ve moved away from the brand being just a marketing issue that is created by individuals to one that is created by everyone – customers and staff. This is then translated into a credible message that everyone can relate to. It’s unifying the company and will help us to stand out, should new competition emerge.”
The new “brand we” positioning comes after months of customer research and finding out from staff how they think they should be representing the brand. Eurostar found that although people knew the brand values, a consistency was lacking in how these should be interpreted.
Noaro says: “We’ve been guilty of dreaming up statements and not filtering them out to all our staff. So instead, we want to have a positioning that applies to everyone involved with the brand. We’re very conscious that it has to be credible and simple – so we have focused on four service personalities to live and breathe: warm and friendly; intuitive; genuine; and well looked after.”
The repositioning is going on now and Noaro hopes consumers will realise what Eurostar stands for when they see all its staff representing the brand in a unified way. The objective is to ensure that customers think about Eurostar whenever they want to travel to Europe, because they valued the experience the first time.
The shift may appear odd for a company that has been established for 15 years, has carried over 100 million travellers and made the equivalent mileage of 338 trips to the moon.
Gillian James, business development director at Cello-owned TMI, says that companies using “brand me” as a philosophy need to be careful, and Eurostar’s “brand we” or “brand us” approach may work better. “The public are wary of what marketers put out there,” she explains, “and are more interested in interactions with people from brands.
“If the people they meet don’t know how to express the brand values, then all clarity from the ‘brand me’ proposal is lost.
“Having a unified ‘brand us’, emphasising values consistently and in a humble way is what all businesses should be aiming for.”
Brand Me Case Study: From social worker to campaign marketing
When Publicis London was awarded the contract for the Government’s Children’s Workforce Development Council £10m ad account in July, the agency had to find a way of promoting social work as an attractive profession. The abuse and eventual death of Baby P, which was not picked up in time by social workers, sparked much negative press coverage of the profession.
Leading the campaign was Tom Ewart, executive creative director at the agency. His mother was a social worker and often told him of the experiences she had on the job, which inspired his approach to the campaign.
“The brief became a bit of a personal crusade, if I’m honest. I’m passionate about every client at Publicis, but in this instance, the chance to re-address the balance for social workers was also a chance to vindicate my mum and all the hard work she’d done over the years,” he says.
The ads were launched in September and consist of a still camera focusing on a bouncing ball or a boiling kettle with a soothing voiceover. They were directed by the portrait photographer Charlie Crane and are designed to show how social workers use their surroundings and training to get people in danger to open up.
For Ewart, the campaign needed to make consumers realise the benefits the profession could offer and try to take people’s minds of negative connotations relating to the profession. He used his own memories to try to bring this sentiment into the ads.
“As a kid, I was always acutely aware of the disconnect between the public’s opinion of the profession and what I knew my mum and her colleagues were really doing, every day to improve the lives of families and children.
“I’d hear the parents of my friends refer to social workers as ‘left wing do-gooders’ that ‘interfere in things that are none of their business’ and it frustrated me how wrong they were.
“I knew that far from ‘interfering’, these people were compassionate, resolute, highly skilled people, who were committed to helping those in difficult circumstances, and that against all the odds they were achieving great things,” he says.
As a result, he kept a close eye on how the ads appeared to ensure they were as close to reality as possible. He says: “From all the stories I’d heard from my mum and her colleagues, I was confident that a campaign based on real experiences and real skills was the way to go.
“In fact, the Dolls’ House press ad is similar to a story my mum told me a good few years ago about how she had used a role-play situation with dolls to help a little girl talk about the abuse she was suffering at home.”
Ewart says the personal connection he invoked for this ad campaign was a valuable asset to this campaign, and “brand me” should be used as much in advertising as possible.
He says: “Personal connections are important in every form of communication, and advertising is no different. This doesn’t mean it has to be as intimate as the one between a mother and son every time, but it might be with the man in the pub, the woman on the bus or the CEO in the city.
“They are all human beings with hopes and dreams and anxieties and expectations. Any good creative needs to understand this and stay close to it if the campaign is going to resonate.”
Brand Me Dos and Don’ts
Do
- Take lessons learned through your use of the latest technology (eg Twitter) into the workplace.
- Be open to constantly evaluating your ideas and tweaking where necessary, just as you would in your career.
- Show your superiors your talents and how they can be used in a business environment.
- Make yourself noticeable everywhere you can – particularly online – and make sure you develop valuable contacts in your network.
- Show that your ability to market yourself to employers and contacts makes you perfect to market to others.
Don’t
- Let your own personal beliefs get in the way of your profession – always keep the two separate.
- Let your ego take over a project and make it all about you – the brand is the thing that needs the promotion, not you.
- Think you know best and not allow your peers to come up with ideas – collaboration is key.
- Stick to the norm because it’s what you’re used to. Be open to new ideas and new methods.
- Forget who the target audience is for your brand – it may not necessarily be the same as your “brand me” audience.
- Use communications that you like personally when your audience does not want to receive interaction using that particular media.
- Break communication guidelines. Always ensure your company knows what you are doing and sign it off to avoid any potential pitfalls later on.
- Mix personal and business thoughts in external marketing communications – you need to speak for the company.
