Branded Employee Experience

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Scenario

As services became the core the Brazilian economy, as with other major industrialised countries and organizations are now more transparent because of the grow of internet and social media, internal brand engagement is increasing it’s importance. To build radical differentiation and great customer experience companies need to move quickly, in a unison. That is why it is essential to increase the attention to one of the most valuable intangible assets: employees. They have opinions and emotions and more than never are willing to express and behave accordingly to them. Companies now need to, based in purpose and values, design a culture that support the brand strategy and emotionally connect their employees - the Brand Culture.

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‘These days that news get out very quickly millions of
customers are being let down everyday. The alignment
of the internal brand culture to the external brand
message is now more important than it ever has been.’

Stephanie Matthews, Brand Engagement Director at Interbrand

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We are living in new times. In the knowledge Era, many traditional competition barriers were broken, there is no safety for business. The management model that preferred the measurable over the meaningful had successfully transformed quality into a commodity and created distrustful customers, disengaged employees and suspicious communities. Meanwhile, brands evolved from keeping consistency of products to the role of helping people shape their own identity.

This scenario of deep technological and social changes is also shaking the global economy. While United

States and Europe suffers a strong crisis, the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - are becoming increasingly relevant on the world’s economic stage. Brazil has an emergent economy, a strong optimism within the country and a growing middle class. A fertile setting for brands to flourish, but also a paradise for international brands. However, although the optimism within the country is high, there is a historical lack of trust. It is expected that the emergent economy will somehow reduce its growth rate and stagnate. This reflects directly in the number of innovative companies, products and brands.

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Hypothesis & Key Question

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Methodology

The methodology of this research is called Triple Diamond. Based on Design Council double diamond, it

is composed of 6 phases, Discover, Define, Develop, Ideation, Evaluation and Deliver. Based on primary and
secondary research it explored the areas of Brand Strategy, Brand Engagement, Culture Change, Innovation, Employee Engagement and Design Management.

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Findings & Discussion

To make the corporate brand live it’s full potential it is needed more than a brand strategy that defines a set of words that everyone inside the company ignores. Corporate branding is also much more than defining a new logo or visual identity or giving strategic direction to communications. It is about integrating the brand values into the corporate culture and truly living the brand. But corporate culture is about employees values and beliefs that determine individual and collective behaviour. It’s the employee experience that shapes the corporate culture. Hence, to design a brand culture companies should integrate brand values into the employee experience and design the Branded Employee Experience (expression created by Doug Hewett, associate director at Interbrand, London).

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‘The macro thinking of brand management as a tool to
leverage the business strategy and consequently
enhance the communication strategy need to be built at Brazil.
Transforming business in brand-driven business is vital.’

Raquel Goulart, Branding Director at Dia Comunicação

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To use brands as a tool to leverage the business it is essential to transform business into brand-led business by integrating the brand values into the corporate culture. Hence, investing in Internal Brand Engagement is key. To deliver the Brand Promise companies need to give to employees - from top management to frontline - tools to understand the Brand Essence, what is the role of the Brand within business and what is theirs own role in delivering the Brand Promise.

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“When a company is defining it’s Brand Strategy an
evaluation phase is essential to make sure that all the
change required to make the Brand Values a reality can
actually be made by the company. If business do not have
the capability to change it will be necessary to rethink the
strategy before you communicate anything.”

Cris Beswick, Strategic Advisor on Innovation

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Recommendations

This research offers a design-led toolkit for companies that are aiming to implement a new brand strategy and design and branding consultancies that might support them in this process to identify the required change inside the company to align and connect employees to the brand values, enhance employee ownership and identification with the brand and support and inform the decision making process.

Toolkit Concept

BEE | Branded Employee Experience

The ideal scenario where the employee experience is perfectly aligned with the brand values and where all the investments, actions and attitudes are done to deliver the brand promise.

Brand Pollination

BEE can help the brand to promote pollination which means disseminate the brand values, the brand culture and the brand message to enhance engagement, awareness and recognition. Brand Pollination is benefited from the employee’s word of a mouth that share the meaningful experiences they had with the brand, encourage other employees to engage and align their own behaviours with the brand values and business goals.

Conclusion

Few brazilian companies recognised the value of infusing design in the business strategy, a powerful tool to build radical differentiation and great customer experience. But Brazil is very quick to embrace change and the ambitious companies that realise the value strategic design and branding brings will come out ahead.

For a better understanding, please read the full research paper bellow or download it here.