Brand - Strategic Brands for Corporate Management

7/29/2019 Brand - Strategic Brands for Corporate Management

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A

Case Study On

Strategic Stars For

Corporate Brand

Submitted To:

Prof. Ranjita Gupta

Submitted By:

Bivu Prasad Pal (11BSP0248)Jyotika Nagi (11BSP0420)

Nancy Gupta (11BSP0582)

Vishal Arya (11BSP1919)


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Are The Strategic Stars Aligned For

Your Corporate Brand?

Companies are increasingly seeing the benefit of acorporate branding strategy. To get the most out of such anapproach, three elements must be aligned :-

Vision : Top management s aspiration for the company.

Culture: the organization's values, behaviors, and attitudes-that is, the way employees all through the ranks feel aboutthe company.

Image: the outside world's overall impression of thecompany. This includes all stakeholders- customers,

shareholders, media, general public and so on.

Aligning these strategic stars requires concentratedmanagerial skills and will. Each element is driven by differentconstituency.


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Corporate Branding Tool Kit

The Corporate Branding Tool Kit is useful in identifying thekey problem areas-the vision-culture gap, the image- culturegap and image- vision gap. The corporate branding tool kit,is a series of diagnostic questions designed to revealmisalignments in corporate vision, culture, and image. The

first question deals with :- Relationship between vision and culture; that is, how

managers and employees are aligned.

The second set addresses culture and image, uncoveringpossible gaps between the attitudes of employees and the

perceptions of the outside world. The last set explores the vision image gap - is management

taking the company in a direction that its stakeholderssupport?


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Vision- Culture Gap

The Vision- Culture Gap usually emerges when seniormanagement establishes a vision that is too ambitious forthe organization to implement.

Following are some of the questions?

Does your company practice the values it promotes?

Does your company's vision inspire all its subcultures?

Are your vision and culture differentiated from those of yourcompetitors?


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THE IMAGE CULTURE GAP

Misalignment between a company's image and organizational

culture leads to confusion among customers about what a companystands for.

When there is difference between what company practices andwhat it preaches, image gets tarnished.

Its necessary to identify the image culture gap to maintain a positive

image. Comparison between what employees say with what customers

and other stakeholders say should be done to identify the gap.

Its important to know what outsiders think of your company and theimage they associate with your company.

Healthy interaction between employees and stakeholders play animportant role to bridge the gap.

Regular feedback should be taken.

Confusion should be avoided.

Employees should take care of what stakeholders think about thecompanys image and work accordingly.


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THE IMAGE-VISION GAP

It arises when there is misalignment between what imagestakeholders have of the company and managements strategic

vision.

Vision of the company and the image should go hand in hand or themost carefully crafted visions might also fail.

To avoid this its important to know your stakeholders well.

Stakeholders expectations should be taken care of.

Having created an inspiring vision backed up with cultural values,

corporate managers all too often fail to check their work with theirstakeholders.

Effective communication of vision to stakeholders should be done inorder to avoid any sort of confusion


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Getting the Stars lined Up

Example:

Lego the fourth largest toymaker in the world. Its most valuable asset was its image as producer of imaginative

and inventive construction toys. In the mid-1990s, the market for the toys started to decline, and

Lego managers knew they had to reinvent the company.

First Step (Building its Image):

Lego turned to outside experts such as Young & Rubicam, aleading advertising agency and found that Lego's image was as

strong as those of some of the world's most powerful players, suchas Disney and Microsoft.

This revelation encouraged Lego executives to stop thinking of thecompany in terms of products-they celebrated Lego bricks-anddare to see themselves as leaders in the business of creativity andlearning.


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Second Step (Bringing vision in line with image):

Conducting brainstorming sessions for top managers and people outsideLego.

The new slogan was -"just imagine..."-and a bold new vision statement.Lego vowed to become the strongest brand among families with childrenby 2005.

Third Step (Develop an organizational culture):

Pit stops and dream-outs are activities that align Lego's culture behindthe vision, and together they have transformed the employee mind-set fromtoy producers to brand warriors.

Pit stops - whereemployees share their

dreams for the

company and

themselves, building

support for the brand in

the process.

Dream outs - where

employees participate in

interactive, real-time

problem solving.

Benefits of the corporate brand strategy:

28% increase in the company's global net sales.In 1998 , the Lego brick was named toy of the century by Fortune magazine.It received the "Toy of the Century" award from the British Association of Toy Retailers.Corporate vision and culture are themselves powerful strategic tools, once they are

aligned with stakeholder images, the corporate brand become a powerhouse for Lego.


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What a Corporate Brand Can Do for You1> Corporate brands reduce costs:

Corporate brands make good sense for companies that compete in markets where

product life cycles have shortened, making it difficult to recover the costs of continuallycreating new product brands. Ex: Nestle, Unilever & SmithKline

2> They give customers a sense of community:

Many customers are willing to pay more for some badge of identification, for ex:

Apple's rainbow-colored logo-that makes them feel they are part of a community.

3> They provide a seal of approval:

A strong corporate brand lets customers know what they can expect of the wholerange of products that a company produces. Ex: SONY

A strong corporate brand also helps a company defend itself against outside assault.

4> They create common ground:

Corporate brands whose symbolism is robust enough to allow people across culturesto share symbols even when they don't share the same meaning. Ex: McDonalds


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When a Corporate Brand Doesn't Make

Sense

The Gap has three successful product brands-Banana Republic,Old Navy, and the Gap-but many customers are unaware thatthey're ail part of the same company.

Sometimes product brands just makemore

sense, especially:

If you are a product incubator.

After M&A activity

If you are expecting fallout.


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If you are a product incubator:

If your company's mission is to create and then sell off successfulproduct brands, imposing a corporate brand on them doesn't makesense.

When Danish NKTsold its subsidiary, Giga, to Intel for more than $1billion. Because NKT's business model is based on selling off othercompanies in the future, it holds them under separate names.

overt corporate branding could detract from the selling price if thepotential buyers believed that disassociating the unit from its currentowner's brand would be costly

After M&A activity:

In industries such as finance and telecommunications, where frequentinternational mergers and acquisitions can affect stakeholder comfort,many companies will choose to preserve their national brands.

After a bank is acquired, customer trust and loyalty areunlikely to betransferred automatically to the new bank owners.

Scandinavia's largest financial company, Nordic Baltic Holding, maintainslocal brands such as MeritaNordbanken in Sweden and Finland, Unibankin Denmark,andChristiania Bank in Norway.Maintaining national brand

names,at least in the short term, can help ease the turmoil of changingownership.


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If you are expecting fallout:

Firms that like to take risks in new markets might not wantto bet their corporate brands by associating them withuntried products.

in industries like oil or chemicals where practices can raise

ethical concerns or companies face repeated crises orscandals, the downside of corporate branding can besteep.

Any negative publicity associated with

the company will spill over onto all the products it labels

with its name or associates with its official symbols.

Brand - Strategic Brands for Corporate Management

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