I am running a workshop for our retail store managers. We want to investigate whether our company values are in line with the brand. We want to help them ensure that they are passing on the brand message and ethos on to their store staff. Any ideas for practical tasks to help get us on the right track?
Erica Harley
5 Responses
Some resources/ideas
Hi Erica,
We have run similar workshops for a number of brands – from global to local. If you’d like to get in touch directly by e-mail I can send you something to point you in the right direction.
Regards,
Megan
Two alternative directions
The key isue here is – do people act (behaviour) in line with the brand values (abstract concept).
So, you have two directions: 1. Work from the abstract concept by looking at how it might be operationalised or 2. Analyse behaviour to identify underpinning values.
Direction 1 could be done by giving them a management task/scenario and asking them to agree how they should address it in line with the brand values (eg by acting out the scenario), and then compare this ‘ideal’ to how they actully do it.
Direction 2 could be done by critical incident amalysis – get them each to identify a significant event relating to a topic, anlayse each other’s behaviour in this scenario agianst the brand vlues to assess how well they operationalised them, then identify alternative strategies.
Brand and company values
Erica
I regularly run sessions to help managers – including some brand ‘cynics’ – understand how the ‘intangible’ aspects of the brand impact on expectations of brand delivery.
Some academic brand models and frameworks, while superficially complex, demonstrate key issues in matching brand and company values. Most participants find Jean Noel Kapferer’s work to be especially stimulating, particularly when linked to examples of brands they know. I have lost track of how many people say that this approach ‘opened their eyes’ to the brand issues they need to address.
Kapferer’s work is academic, but it is easy to apply and use. Key issues can be developed stage by stage through a combination of exploratory activities – based on your own and competitor brands – and discussion.
Participants with limited prior understanding of brands can develop a fairly sophisticated level of understanding within a fairly short time. Experienced ‘brand’ managers find the discipline of this approach illuminating. All will learn tools to diagnose key areas for attention, so management action points always emerge from this approach.
Hope this helps.
Lynn
An expert in the field
I can recommend that you contact Fiona Tordoff at Whitebridge Consultancy Ltd, she has very extensive knowledge of brand value/awareness workshops has worked with some very large clients as well as smaller ones and would be able to help you. Her email address is fiona@whitebridgeconsultancy.com.
I am sure she would be of use.
delivering the brand proposition seamlessly
We worked with Tesco for over two years looking at how staff related to the company Core Values Set. Many agreed with the core values but could find little evidence that they were ‘lived’ on a day to day basis when it came to dealing with each other.
So Tesco is now spending serious budgets with Store Managers to bring behaviours into line – we developed Emotional Intelligence programs that enable this to take place.
Probably the best place to start is with customers – they largely decide if the brand is being delivered – their views and purses are crucial.
There is research published that suggests the Brand really has no value since the Brand is a Marketeers construct and those guys don’t serve customers – so don’t get hung up on the brand but get serious about how you service customers. Customer feedback should be at the core of your development program.
Our experience confirms that Store managers need to listen to customer service staff more openly, objectively and without pre-judgement: build your course around that. Being really perverse about this we would say ‘Know everything that your customers like about how you service them, how you treat them and what works well in store.’ Then fold that back into the Brand proposition – that way you can deliver the Brand seamlessly.
Finally – is your Brand message clear and deliverable. How would you differentiate your organisation from any other – what makes you so special that customers will spread your message for you, saves wasting dollars on advertising.
The only outcome that makes sense is ‘Love the customers to death’ We see this in action at Tesco. We didn’t see it at M&S. QED as they say.
Good luck with the workshop.
Ray Bennett