Branding Employee Communications

We know that a powerful external brand image can engage customers and enhance a company’s reputation. Why not apply the principles of branding to your internal communications?

That’s the premise of my session at the Canadian Communications Congress next month in Toronto.

I think branding employee programs isn’t uncommon. It just doesn’t happen as often as it should.

It’s easy, even natural, to establish one standard for external campaigns and another, lower one, for internal communications. I take care to dress up when I go out or have guests, but I admit that I can go days without shaving if I don’t have any client meetings planned. But why should my wife and kids have to submit to stubbly kisses? And why should your employees have a “brand experience” that’s not as consistent or powerful as the one your organization delivers to its external stakeholders?

I’ve got some examples that I plan to talk about at my session, but I could use some more case studies. Do you know of anyone out there who’s doing exceptional work in branding internal communications programs?

Comments

[regina]

There's lots of converstions going on about employee branding and it is probably more common than you think. I think your scope is a bit limited though...branding your internal communications? Internal comm is a sliver of how an internal brand gets designed, delivered and sustained.

[Ron Shewchuk]

My scope is indeed limited, Regina, and perhaps too much so. I'm thinking in terms of how internal communicators can be more consistent in image and message with their organization's overall brand strategy. And, for me, this mostly means working with normal internal communications channels/tactics (newsletters, posters, bulletin boards, face-to-face meetings, etc.) But, as I see reading your excellent blog, http://blogs.bnet.com/hr/, there's so much more to it than that, including, as you put it, "- corporate culture development and alignment of external brand with internal everything - people strategy, facilities strategy, performance management, values development, leadership development, etc."

I want to learn more about these aspects of internal branding, but I'm going to have to focus my presentation on some of the brand-related things employee communicators should think about as they plan and execute internal communciations programs. But that doesnt' stop me from pointing to examples of what companies do to make their facilities consistent with their brand -- like game developer EB Games, which built a international competition-quality, natural turf soccer pitch as part of its new offices in Burnaby, B.C.

Interesting, when you think about it, how some corporate conversations would play out if we really thought about brand all the time. "The new CEO is a great hire. She's right on brand." Or "Adding an extra shift to our plant in Mexico to keep up with demand from China is so off brand I'm not sure if our investors will put up with it."

But it's so true. Starbucks sure isn't going to serve Nescafe in the corporate office cafeteria, and Jack Daniel's ain't gonna paint the new storage shed pink. The strongest brands in the world act as if every single contact with the company, inside or out, either reinforces or burns the brand.

So who's doing what that we can learn from?