Extending Your Brand to Employees

I recently had the opportunity to present and lead a panel discussion at The Conference Board’s ‘Extending Your Brand to Employees Conference’ in Chicago, IL. The conference provided a forum for marketing, brand, communications and HR professionals to share how they have engaged their employees to embrace and deliver upon their brands’ promises.

Here are some of the more interesting quotes and thoughts from that conference:

“Branding is all about the promises your company makes to external audiences and the promises it keeps with those audiences.”

Randall S. Rozin, global director, branding and marketing communications, Dow Corning Corporation

Scott Davis, senior partner, Prophet, indicated that he believes the following three things are most important in branding today:

-Brand relevance
-Customer experience
-Employee engagement and alignment

“It seems to me that when people talk about employer branding, they are talking about one of two things:

Positioning the organization to potential and current employees
Engaging employees to deliver upon their organization’s promises to its customers
These two things are important and related, yet different.”

Kristen Weirick, employer brand manager, Whirlpool Corporation

Bonnie Gellas, director, corporate communications, Merrill Lynch indicated that at Merrill Lynch ‘Human Resources (HR)’ has been renamed ‘Leadership and Talent Management,’ reflecting how that company views the evolving role of that function.

Lissa Reitz of Target Corporation indicated

that Target’s research showed that their guests (customers) believed that if Target’s bathrooms were clean, it indicated that Target was a well run store. At Target, people are paid not only to clean the floors, but to keep them shiny at all times.

Story telling emerged as one of the most powerful tools to reinforce brand building behavior. Dean Rodenbough, director, corporate communications, Hallmark, indicated that as a part of its internal brand building activities, Hallmark implemented a ‘Stories of Hallmark’ speakers series in which employees tell brand related stories.

Yolanda Villegas, global branding leader, GE Insurance Solutions indicated that when her company asked employees to tell a customer story, over 100 employees responded.

Sponsored By: Harvard Business School Press