Touch your target
Inclusive events and personal conversations were also hallmarks of the Obama campaign. Corporate communicators ignore the power of one-on-one communication at their peril when projecting a new brand and mission. Several of the companies in my study went to extraordinary lengths to connect to the broad employee base. There's no better example than CEC Bank -- the former Romanian state banking monopoly that rebranded in 2008 to compete with global banks for the first time. In order to introduce employees to the general concept of a brand, let alone CEC's own brand, there were engagement sessions averaging 15 hours with all 6,700 of the bank's employees, as well as their union officials.
After the Thomson Reuters rebranding was broadcast around the world by satellite, CEO Tom Glocer embarked on a 30-day world tour. The primary objective was to speak with employees about the goal of "One Company in one Year." Likewise, after aviation solutions provider Rockwell Collins introduced its new brand, Dave Yeoman, director of corporate communications, held informal brown bag lunches with employees in his travels to company facilities around the world.
Measure green, make green
Clearly the Obama campaign benefited from the support of environmentalists. Every organization is being judged by its sustainability. Outside of companies whose business is the environment, (BP, GE, etc.) this is an area that has been largely ignored in corporate rebranding events. A few bright spots: Smith & Nephew, in its rebranding, shipped flat, corrugated boxes printed with the new brand identity elements to all offices to be assembled and displayed on site -- a cost and energy saving tactic. Of course, Grant Thornton and Johnson Controls' locally staged events saved the energy that would have been required to send large groups of employees to central locations. The same with CSC, which used a "follow the sun" strategy to launch its brand, country by country, at noon in each time zone.
But by in large, environmental concerns have not been at the forefront when launching new corporate brands. No doubt this will change.
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