Point of View

Branding with BAT - a Communitech P2P Presentation

Posted by theBATstudio on 5 January 2012 | 144 Comments

Tags: Brand

Just returning from a trip to the North - where I visited Communitech in Waterloo, Canada. While there I had the opportunity to present on Brand in front of nearly 50 local marketers and agency execs in a monthly Peer-to-Peer workshop sponsored by my hosts.

I received a number of requests to post the preso - but due to the sensitive nature of some of the slides, have decided to post a summary here instead:

Topic: Branding with BAT

Case Study One: Best Practices (SuccessFactors)

• Get the Technology Right
  SuccessFactors spent a great deal of time and capital on building a product offering that disrupted the marketplace. They considered both the strongest entry point, and how to strategically grow share. When the approached my firm - they were ready to transform into a marketing and sales machine, because they had the product right.
• Stay Focused On Values
  SuccessFactor's CEO established clear and well-defined values from the beginning. These values were clearly articulated to us, and carried through to their purchase by SAP 5 years later.
• Strong and Well-Aligned Leadership
  The SuccessFactors team was well aligned coming into the process - debate was open and insightful on the offering and the brand, but with a clear sense of Core Purpose and end goals.
• Listen to Customers
  One of the most important exercises SuccessFactors engaged in, both during the Brand Synthesis process and after, was the pursuit of the Customer voice - they did not assume to know what the customer wanted, they asked, repeatedly and at multiple levels (buyer, decision maker, end-user).
• Be Consistent
  Decide and commit. Test the results. If they show room for improvement, change. That's performance-based results and it's the SuccessFactors way.

Case Study Two: Pitfalls to Avoid (Anonymous Client)

• Leadership clearly not vested with authority
  Executive teams that are not well aligned, that do not place their fate in their leaders hands, and that are afraid of change just are not good candidates for a rebranding process.
• Vague, Loosely Defined Objectives
  When an executive team cannot clearly articulate a tangible and concrete objective for a rebranding exercise - then there's no place to begin. We have to understand what you want to achieve, and have a way to measure success. Otherwise, success is subjective and easily susceptible to changing interests, stakeholders, and whims.
• Lack of knowledge about customers, or desire to center branding around them
  When an executive team does not have first hand experience working with customers and understanding their needs, when they are laser focused only on what they do, and not what their customers need, and when they have no interest in creating dialogue with their customers - run away.
• Lack of commitment
  Decide and commit. Test and modify. If a client can't decide and won't commit - you'll spin in revisions, water down the best ideas, and go over time and over budget - every time.
• Reliance on subjective, personal decision making
  The whole point of Brand Synthesis is to create a strong Brand Platform to measure marketing programs against. There's no room for "like" "don't like" in this criteria... Rather the measurement of success needs to be "achieves" "does not achieve" and ultimately "meets" or "does not meet" objectives.

Case Study Three: When it's right, it sticks (Eloqua)

• Executive Investment is KEY
  Any branding exercise without a companies key stakeholders is doomed. The marketing leadership is not enough. The CEO, founder, and sales leadership are key to success. Period.
• Base values around the Company NOT individuals
  In our exercise with Eloqua, we started the first day off with a corporate vales exercise - and the results were all over the map - mostly aligned with the individuals in the room. By the end of the second day, when we conducted the exercise again, the team (8 execs) uniformly aligned around a singular value set.
• Seek External Validation
  In addition to customer interviews, Eloqua used BAT to conduct extensive user-testing of their value propositions and key branding elements. As a result the CMO could confidently present the board with a brand clearly aligned with their Brand Platform and well received by their target audience.
• Commit and Execute
  Eloqua and BAT developed a comprehensive strategic roll-out plan that considered a multi-channel integrated marketing program, their product, their office space, the partner programs, etc. The result was that when the brand rolled out, Eloqua was able to quickly swap to the new brand and positioning in a matter of days instead of weeks or months.
• It takes time and patience
  The results of the brand roll out developed over the course of 3 quarters. The first two quarters saw a dramatic up-tick in lead-gen. The third quarter after roll-out yielded a record quarter for sales. The tangible results took 9 months. The effects, however, are lasting. Eloqua's brand has remained stable for three years, and plans for an IPO were recently announced.