Activating Brand Culture:
Rethinking the Internal Communications Platform

What has been called "internal communications" is now at the centerof the corporate agenda. Why? Because the communications functionis a linchpin in employer branding efforts - as well as other immediate corporateinitiatives like leadership, innovation, and corporate social responsibility. Yetmany organizations are aware that their internal communications are suboptimal,which presents a significant obstacle to internal brand activation.

This reality has a great deal to do with the changing nature of communicationsin general. The proliferation of new communications channels - from emailto text messaging to social media and beyond - has democratized internalcommunications in an exciting and challenging way: internal communicationsare now co-created between employees and leadership.

Given this new co-creation process, the approach that most organizations taketo internal communications is fundamentally flawed. Most focus their internalcommunications on providing - or pushing - information to employees throughtraditional corporate communications channels. As a result,today's default internal communications strategy remainsbroadcasted corporate-speak. These communications are partof the clutter of everyday organizational life that dull innovation,hamper discretionary effort, and undermine the brand experience foremployees and customers alike.


Moving Communications from "Think-Feel-Do" to "Feel-Do-Think"

What employees think about their work experience is obviouslyimportant. In fact, think is widely regarded as the first step inthe preeminent employee engagement model of "think-feelact."The purpose of the model was to explain how employeesbecome and stay engaged in their work within an organization.The reasoning goes like this: First employees think. Next, thatidea leads to a feeling, which in turn leads to action. The moreaction and effort, the more highly engaged the employee. Andevery CEO today wants to have highly engaged employees,particularly given the productivity and revenue improvementsthat engagement brings.

As engagement grew in stature and the link between internalcommunications and engagement became increasinglyapparent, the think-first model came to govern internalcommunications as well. This helps to explain today's internalcommunications landscape dominated by emails, memos, andPowerPoint presentations. These methods convey informationand make people think.

The bigger question is what involvement employees have inthe internal communications process, how they perceive thisprocess, and what the communications vehicles and channelsmake the employees feel. This feeling - what the employeesexperience in their work and then convey to customers - isat the heart of employer branding and engagement. Internalcommunications must now become much more effectivein driving emotion and idea engagement to help deliver anemployer brand experience.


Employee Experience Management: The Intersection of Brand and Talent

Employer branding is timely. Though the concept has beenunder discussion since the early 1990s, it's only recentlythat large organizations have embraced the idea, which issomewhat analogous to customer experience management(CEM.) Whereas CEM focuses upon the delivery, perception,and business impact of the customers' experience, employerbranding focuses on the deliverer of the customer experience:the employees, and how they experience and translate theorganization.

This point of view places employees at the center of the branddelivery equation. The hospitality industry has long adopted(and quantified!) this idea, but now everyone is getting onboard. The Ritz Carlton's employer brand of "ladies andgentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen" is a great example ofemployee experience management. Employees that are treatedwith dignity and respect are more successful at providing acustomer experience predicated on dignity and respect.

It's a simple concept, but challenging to execute: the notionthat the whole organization serves as the foundation for brandpositioning and activation. The challenge stems from theinherently cross-functional nature of the employee experience.Every function plays a role in shaping and determining theemployee experience. So whereas an employer brandingprogram can begin in HR, Marketing, Communications,Recruitment, Customer Service, or somewhere else, it willultimately have to extend across functions in order to holisticallyimpact the employee experience and shape culture. Theintersection of brand and talent is in culture, and an organization'sbrand culture determines both employee and customerexperiences. Part of the promise and power of employerbranding is that it focuses organizations on understandingthese functional and cultural intersections as never before.In this sense, it is a model for corporate cultural innovation.


Employer Brand Activation: The Uncommon Denominator

This anthropological view of brand as culture has gainedsignificant currency as of late. Clearly there's a one-tooneratio between most admired brands and most admiredcultures: think Apple, Ritz-Carlton, or Southwest. Everyoneplays the role of customer at some point, and everyone knowswhat a great brand experience is. Employees do not turn thisawareness off when they come to work.

Because of the correlation between brand and culture, thereis no shortage of employer branding advisors at the moment.Perhaps the greatest confirmation of employer branding'smerits is the proliferation of practicing professionals andadvisory firms in this space. Whether in-house leaders, PR firms,advertising agencies, branding shops, design boutiques, ormanagement consultancies, everyone sees the merit andopportunity in bringing the concept of brand to life with employees.

Strategic models for employer branding abound. Theseframeworks tend to focus on inquiries like "what is our brandessence?", "what are our mission, vision, and values?" and"what makes us different as an organization?" These questionsare essential to understand and make for worthwhile andthought-provoking inquiry.

But these are only pieces of the brand activation puzzle.And if you notice, these questions once again default to thecognitive, command-and-control communications modelof "the company tells employees." This is where internalcommunications can add real value. Go beyond askingwhat the employer brand intends to tell employees, and askwhat employees do with the employer brand? How does theemployee brand make your people feel? Do these feelingsinspire employees to join in creating, celebrating, andprotecting your employer brand?

Remember that in employer brand activation, the mostsuccessful programs center on co-creation of brandcommunications and experience with the employees.


Bringing the Employer Brand to Life

There is no one-size-fits-all employer brand activation solution.Often times, organizations push into employer branding tospearhead some larger change management initiative, and havetherefore targeted organizationally-specific objectives andoutcomes. However, there are some emerging best-practiceinternal communications ideas and approaches that can greatlyimprove the success of any employer branding program:

Become a map-maker: No one would embark on a longjourney without the appropriate set of maps. Employer brandactivation is nothing if not a journey. Take the time to mapthe terrain. Thoroughly understand the different audiencesegments in your workforce. How do they live at work andwhat do they care about? What are they feeling right now andwhat emotions do you want them to feel? What are the actionsand thoughts these feelings will generate, and how do theyline up against customers' moments of truth with your brand?Build in your existing brand work, engagement results, andanything else you believe relevant. In The Art of War, SunTzu wrote that every battle is won or lost before it is fought.Take the time to develop rigorous communications maps.

Focus on feeling: For internal communications, the focus onfeeling means several things - all of which add up to change.Use a more visual approach to internal communicationsstrategy. Try to avoid the same-old PowerPoint format.Employer branding is storytelling. It's about painting apicture of what is possible, so add images, symbols, textures,colors, sounds, whatever... as so much of the employee brandexperience will be non-verbal. One large multinationalclient had invested heavily in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.They initially reported news and results of their support inemails and postings from their CEO. It became clear thatthe emotional impact of the investment on employees wasnegligible. They then invested in a short video that capturedthe essence of the disaster and the magnitude of their help,which was shown to every employee. One year later, when Iconducted employer branding focus groups with employeesaround the country, the video was still top-of-mind inemployees' perceptions of the organization. From a branding and engagement perspective, the return on the organization'sinvestment was extraordinary. But they had to thinkdifferently about internal communications. Make your storyvisual and compelling, and you will see results. And don't fearfeedback: Getting to the right employer branding programmeans working past a series of speed bumps and culs-de-sacto find the best brand activation path for your organization.

Think stories: Storytelling in corporate culture has reallycaught on as an actionable idea. A recent client - a CEOwho had been one of the highest-ranking leaders in the USMilitary - would passionately share his belief in the power ofstorytelling with me. Yet despite his support, bringing storiesto life within his organization was very challenging because sofew people understood the challenge. The employer brandingstoryteller must enter the hearts of the employees, wherethe emotions live, even as the information he or she seeksto convey rents space in employees' brains. Our minds arerelatively open, but we guard our hearts with zeal, knowingtheir power to move us. So although the mind may be partof your target, the heart is the bulls-eye. How about youremployee value proposition: is it a bunch of corporate-speakor does it tell a story that attracts, engages, and retains peopleon an emotional level? Build your stories into an employerbrand personality, creating a persona of what your brandculture is and is not.

Embrace interactivity: More often than not, technology sitsfar outside of internal communications core competencies.Yet a company's culture is really just a large, ongoingconversation. Without interactivity, that conversation becomesa one-way street that is fraught with cracks. Telling employeesthat they are your most important asset is one thing. Invitingthem into the ownership fold is quite another and the waytowards ownership is through dialog and empowerment. Aterrific example from our recent client work involved buildinga YouTube-like platform for a leading airline. Needless to say,the airline industry is not a hotbed of employee engagement.The goal of the platform was to engage employees and involvethem in the employer brand building process. The execution ofthis program had several pivotal employer branding elementsbaked in, and the results have been a staggering success inmaking employees feel the employer brand. This campaignhas kicked off a new wave of entertaining, brand-building, andinteractive communication across the organization. Employerbranding campaigns succeed when successive communicationwaves such as this are launched, embraced, and sustained.

Connect functionally: Cross-functional cooperation is themost recent and important trend to emerge in employerbranding. Not too long ago, employer branding clientsrepresented a single function, and that function's abilityto affect change was by definition limited. Today, we areentering client relationships with several different functionalrepresentatives at the table, and as such there are far greateropportunities to have powerful impact. There are manyevents within corporate life where communications plays asupporting role. When it comes to employer branding, internalcommunications must become a lead actor, driving crossfunctionalco-creation and participation. Past experiencewith large-scale employer branding efforts indicates that theopportunities for communications to create significant winsand return on investment lay largely in cultivating these crossfunctionalrelationships. Every functional leader I have evermet would like to improve their communications. Employerbranding opens the door for internal communications to stepup to the challenge in high impact and measureable ways.

A company's culture is essentially the organization's soul,shaped collectively through success and setback. Employerbranding is an opportunity to breathe new life into that soul.Emotive and interactive internal communications can be apowerful source of new life.


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Author: Jonathan Willard, Global Director of Organizational Communications, JWT INSIDE
Issue: 10
Date: November 2008