Looking inward: How internal branding and communications affect cultural change

Design Management Journal, Summer 2003 by Faust, Bill, Bethge, Beverly

In seeking to transform an organization, consultants should be commissioned to create strategies and media for internal stakeholders, as well as for external audiences. Using several informative case studies, William Faust and Beverly Bethge discuss the scope of this type of undertaking and demonstrate the benefits of such inward-focused brand initiatives in the arenas of human resources, organizational development, training, and operations.

When someone mentions the final frontier, we probably think of space exploration. However, many marine biologists would argue that there is a lot more to be learned-and gained-by looking inward and exploring the world's oceans. If we extend this analogy to corporate branding, there is a similar argument to be made that too much attention is spent developing and implementing external messages and customer-facing touch-points, without an equal emphasis on the internal customer-employees.

It is a tough sell, for several reasons. First, companies cannot exist without customers, and if there is any audience that needs to understand and indeed accept a brand, it's the target market. Second, most branding initiatives and their corresponding budgets are controlled by the company's marketing function-whose sole reason for existing is to reach the customer. Finally, it is difficult to calculate a return on investment for communicating more effectively with internal audiences.

Yet it strikes us as odd that the number-one complaint we hear with respect to major branding initiatives-and we all know how many there have been-in the past five years is their inability to effect real cultural change. This article is not meant to imply that internal communications is the sole answer to aligning employees with brand strategy. Other issues, like training, leadership, and organizational development, play an even greater role in this transformation and are beyond the scope of this discussion. However, we do believe that by applying brand design principles to internal communications, large organizations can accelerate the process of changing employee attitudes and, ultimately, employee behavior.

Just how important are internal communications, and how do we distinguish good communications from bad? In a recent study conducted by The Empower Group, a global human resource consultancy, a major European retailer surveyed more than 24,000 employees to quantify the link between communication and issues such as motivation, loyalty, and productivity. One finding examined the link between company-wide communications about such things as vision and mission with employee behavior. The study showed a .60 linkage coefficient between the transparency of communication (visibility) and employees' overall feelings about the company. The net conclusions of the study were twofold:

1. Positive communication creates a highly motivated staff.

2. Good communication has a positive impact on business.

But there's that question again: Just what is good communication? This is no less easy to answer than "What is good design?" We feel the two are linked, and when we use the same kind of criteria to evaluate internal communications that we do for external communications, we see marked improvement in loyalty, morale, performance, and alignment of behavior with corporate brand strategy.

Defining a reasonable scope

Perhaps the biggest road block to developing a design-driven approach to branded internal communications is defining a realistic scope and identifying those internal touch-points that matter most in terms of aligning behavior with brand strategy. After all, when one adds up all the emails, memos, manuals, information packets, meetings, workshops, presentations, training materials, intranets, and the like, the volume of communication elements can be staggering. Too many companies atrophy under the sheer weight of these communications and opt to create a single, one-time internal branding campaign to herald the arrival of the new brand strategy.

This type of internal rollout is both appropriate and necessary when rebranding a large organization. However, it should be viewed as only the beginning, in the same way that a new ad campaign might be the first and most visible external manifestation of the new brand in the marketplace. Unfortunately, too many companies stop there-satisfied with a few one-shot internal tools, such as a brand identity manual, corresponding brand manifesto, and perhaps even the business cards, caps, t-shirts, and other promotional items that seem so necessary at the time but quickly become meaningless if not supported by a consistent and lasting employee communications plan. Internal communications must take on the brand's architecture, values, image, and voice in a pervasive and lasting way. However, as with most things, there are some tools that will be more effective than others.

Also reminiscent of an external branding campaign, internal communications simply need to be prioritized in terms of content, audience, frequency, and other variables in order to arrive at an approach that maximizes impact and return on investment. In our experience, there is no single formula to assigning these priorities; rather, it varies from company to company and depends upon the situation at hand. For example, a company experiencing a merger that will affect brand strategy will have very different needs from one that is simply undergoing an evolutionary rebranding initiative. However, several categories of communication are common to most firms and should be considered (figure 1).