Michelle Martin, head of Marketing for the newly rebranded Lumesse came to #truDublin this week to tell the story of how they did it.The process they went through to engage all employees,and what the brand should stand for when it was launched on the public. the process took 11 months, and i think there are some very interesting points worth sharing.
Brand is much more than a marketing effort.
The biggest take away for me was that they concentrated all their branding effort and attention on the employees of the business, believing that if they got the internal branding effort right, then the external branding would naturally follow. I agree with this sentiment, having witnessed too many companies who view branding as a purely marketing effort, more about image than actually meaning something. Winning the hearts and minds of employees by giving them the main say in the outcome is farmore important than the external image. if they believe the message then they will share it. In the social age, sharing person to person is the most important consideration.
The reasoning behind the rebranding was that the old Stepstone business was in a bit of a branding wilderness after splitting from the job board side of the business. Plenty of people knew the Stepstone name, but without the job board product, few knew quite what they were. They are a global business who needed a clearly defined offering.
The project started with a whole series of open conversations with 40 staff from around the globe representing different departments, to identify and agree what the business values should be. This was followed up by a 6 week programme of employee communication and conversation to gather and consider every opinion from the whole of the business.
After much head scratching, and doubtless plenty of post it notes, mind maps and the like, they came up with the following brand statements:
:Lets be honest
:Free your mind
:Enjoy the ride
:Yes (translated in to many languages!)
Time will tell if this is marketing speak or something more meaningful and longer lasting, but the early signs are positive. By taking an employee lead approach to branding, there’s a much greater chance to deliver the things that you tell people you are about. It’s testament to the employee buy in to the rebrand that despite having had the new look, name, image and message revealed to all staff a full 4 weeks before the public launch, the companies request for keeping things under wraps was followed, with no leaks. Given the connected age that we live in, I think that is quite remarkable and says a lot.
Some other interesting take-aways were:
It’s impossible now to get a descriptive dot-com name globally. they have all gone.
A rebrand gives the opportunity to take a close look at all of the business from values, services, customers and what you want the business to be collectively.
In a global business, you need to define what works locally and define a local brand that works within the global brand. Personalised without conflicting.
I’m looking forward to hearing more at #truLeeds about how this story is unfolding. What do you think are the most important aspects of brand and who decides it?
Bill
Links:
This is a sponsored post part of the Lumesse Blogathon www.lumesse.com
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My view on the company values and the brand is similar to Zappo’s, The values should be the criteria you Hire and Fire against! If you are not willing to take this action on employees who do or don’t fit the mold then the values quickly become diluted and worthless!
Well done to Lumesse for taking this giant leap, it’s very brave and I think the fact they are open and willing to share this experience is testament to them living the new brand values and rebuilding the business with a fresh outlook.