#brand implementation

You must have been through many visual and verbal advertisement of any particular brand. They are done to create a brand identity among target customers. This is a key foundation that ensures strong and consistent growth for the future of any organization. Without a brand, your company is left unrecognizable in the market.

Creating a brand identity is not just about designing an appealing and brilliant logo or manifestos it is a whole program that needs to be implemented in a well-planned way. In this competitive era, companies look for ways to connect emotionally with their customers and create long-lasting relationships.

A strong and outstanding brand will shine out even in the crowded market-place. It is a step that accelerates the growth of your organization.

Bring life to a brand:

A brand implementation strategy definitely brings life to your brand. A brand implementation is a way to introduce your brand to the world. It is a process which must be done in a very responsible and planned way.

Creating an implementation plan is a very crucial process before implementation one must ensure that your company is strong enough to cope up with the future growth. Brand implementation must be done in a consistent way and one must use all the modes of communication to advertise brand attitudes and values.

It is very important to remember that proper brand implementation strategy can help you to ensure success for the future of your company. Without an implementation plan, it is just impossible to catch up with your competitors, but with a well-planned strategy, you can outshine them from the moment you implement your branding strategy.

Modulex Americas understands the need of branding in today’s era thus has come up with a proper and managed way of brand identity implementation.

Whether you’re going through a merger, acquisition, or brand refresh, the physical brand conversion is often the most time consuming and costly step, especially if no one in your organization has the previous experience of managing one. The process of identifying and converting every sign, vehicle, promotional item, and every other physical asset takes up valuable internal resources. I was recently reminded of how large of a task this was for businesses after reading a NorthBay Business Journal article titled, When a 104-year-old company seeks to rebrand. Throughout the research and design stages of their rebrand, this company relied on the help from their brand strategy and design agency. When they got to the implementation and rollout phase, authors Chris Paris and Piper Turner explained:

“Next came perhaps the largest body of work: applying the new brand across our suite of materials from stationary to the firm website to signage. The phase came with logistical challenges as we retired old materials and replaced them with new. Even the seemingly simple task of ordering business cards was a full-time coordination job with more than 2,600 people across 20-plus locations.”

This got me thinking, if businesses outsource the research and brand development to a brand strategy and design agency, why would they not outsource the implementation to a brand implementation company? Turns out, many people don’t even know brand implementation companies exist! So how do you know if you should outsource this piece of the branding puzzle? Here’s a few cautionary details that may help you answer that question:

Your team lacks complex brand implementation experience

Your team is already hitting 100% utilization for their day-to-day responsibilities

Your conversion deadlines are fast approaching

You don’t currently have brand implementation processes or a brand management system

You don’t have a comprehensive, up-to-date database of every physical branded asset

You lack a network of suppliers that best-fit your needs 

There’s a lot that goes into managing and executing a physical brand conversion project and your internal team already has a lot on their plate - from focusing their efforts on employee and customer retention to completing their regular day-to-day tasks. Why add the extra stress of managing this large task if you don’t have to? Outsourcing the brand implementation to experts is no different that outsourcing other operations to specialists, like digital marketing agencies or design firms. If you’re faced with the challenge of a physical brand conversion and need the extra help, don’t be afraid to ask for it! Lower your employee stress and contact Implementix to learn how we can manage this process for you. 

We’ve made it to the end! After reviewing the four steps to planning a brand activation project and three steps to managing one, we’ve finally made it to the last and final step of this entire blog series. So far in part III, we’ve covered creating a brand messaging centralized database and appointing a brand guardian. But the responsibility of ensuring brand consistency doesn’t just fall on the brand guardian - asset owners and facility managers are responsible as well. Step 3: Assign and track corrective actions While it’s great to have a brand messaging database to help keep track of your brand in the marketplace and a brand guardian to oversee that your brand stays compliant, neither of those will matter if your asset owners and facilities managers don’t buy-in to help complete the compliance mission. Because your branded assets can be spread out in multiple footprints, the brand guardian will rely on asset owners and facility managers to help keep the brand messaging database up-to-date. How do they do this? By running compliance checks on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. The compliance checks will allow brand guardians to assign asset owners and facility managers tasks to update the database with current photos and descriptions of branded assets. The brand guardian will then be able to see what corrective actions are needed to make everything brand complaint, assign these actions to the asset owners and facility managers, and track the revisions of each branded asset in the database as changes are made.  To effectively ensure brand consistency in your company, the brand guardian, asset owners, and facility managers must all work in tandem to continually update your brand messaging database. If creating the database seems a little daunting, Implementix offers an ix Touchpoint application that will do it for you! With this tool, your brand guardian will be able to:

track the brand compliance statuses of each individual branded asset at each location,

track unresolved corrective actions for marketing materials, signage, displays and facilities, and 

assign future marketing campaigns straight from the app. 

Interested in learning more? Email us at [email protected] for more information.   And there you have it - we’ve completed the entire series! You’ve successfully learned how to plan for and manage a successful brand activation project, and have learned how to ensure brand consistency once your project is completed. We’d love to know your thoughts! Did you find these tips helpful? Are there brand change strategies your company has implemented that are different from what we outlined? Shoot us a note and let us know!

Last week, we introduced you to the first step of ensuring brand consistency after planning and managing your brand activation project. As mentioned, documenting the location, asset, brand compliance, and marketing campaign details of your brand messaging is not enough. (Need a refresher? Check out last week’s blog here.) You have to consistently monitor that messaging throughout your company. What’s the best way to do this? Appoint someone in your organization to take the lead on it. Step 2: Appoint a brand guardian We recommend having your brand guardian be either a singular person or group of people that are a mix of your in-house marketing team and facilities team - rather than an agency. While your agency will help build and develop your brand story and promise, your in-house marketing and facilities teams are the actual brand owners. They see, interact with, and maintain the brand on a daily basis. The brand guardian will essentially be the go-to person (or people) that oversees your company’s brand in the physical marketplace, so choose wisely! By using the brand messaging database from step one, the brand guardian(s) will be able to:

identify compliance gaps, 

maintain brand consistency, and 

manage all promotional messaging from start to finish.

Having ownership of the above will allow you brand guardian to ensure brand consistency throughout your company. But how exactly do can they achieve this on their own? Check back next week as we go over the final step: assign and track corrective actions.

By this point, you've learned how to plan and manage a brand activation project, but how do you ensure brand consistency moving forward? 

It all starts with documenting your brand messaging in a database.  Step 1: Create brand messaging centralized database The goal of this database is to help you keep track of your brand messaging. Companies are always evolving and changing - whether you're going through a merger or acquisition, plan on running a new brand campaign, or want to change your brand altogether, it's imperative that you know where each physical asset is, what each physical asset's brand message is, and how long each physical asset will hold that brand message.   Now let's take this back to the beginning. Back when we reviewed how to plan for your brand activation project, step one was to document the details of every physical branded asset. (Need a refresher? Check out that post here.) Use the database you created in step one of planning as your basis for step one of ensuring brand consistency! In your brand messaging database, you'll want to include:

Location Details - map of each location, total number of signs and vehicles at each location, etc.

Asset Details - sign type/manufacturing details, vehicle make/model/year, current image of each asset and their "brand message", etc.

Brand Compliance Details - image of each sign/vehicle design standard, copy of company brand guidelines, brand compliance status of each location and each asset, etc. 

Marketing Campaign Details (if applicable) - scheduled marketing campaigns, campaign messages, length of campaigns, etc. 

Check. You. Out. You did it! Part three of our three-part series, How to Activate and Manage Your Brand, is finally here. By now, you know the four steps to planning for your brand activation project:

Document the details of every physical asset,

Prioritize the visibility of your assets,

Pick the brand treatments that best fit your budget, and

Engineer brand guidelines for vendor selection.

And you know the three steps to managing your brand activation project:

Hire the appropriate vendors,

Start with the end in mind, and

Create a communication plan.

Now that you know how to PLAN and MANAGE your brand activation, it’s crucial you understand how to MAINTAIN your brand consistency.

According to Demand Metric’s Benchmark Report on The Impact of Brand Consistency, of the negative impacts that result from inconsistent brand usage, creating confusion in the market is cited by over 70% of the studies participants.

Ensuring your brand is consistent across all your physical and digital assets is of the upmost importance. Follow along as we review the three steps on How to Ensure Brand Consistency after your activation project is complete.

By now, you have carefully selected your vendors and you’ve created a realistic timeline based on your desired end-result. But to be truly successful in managing your conversion, you need to have a solid communication plan for everyone involved in the process.

Step 3: Create communication plan

I’m not just talking about a communication plan between you and the members of the brand activation team. I’m talking about having a solid communication plan for your team, your customers, and your vendors! Poor communication can lead to customer uncertainty, overdue deadlines, and blown budgets.

When creating your communication plan, your number one priority should be keeping your customers (old and new) in the loop. During merger or acquisition activity, your customers can develop fear of the unknown, fear of change, and fear of feeling undervalued. The best way to reduce customer attrition is by creating a two-way dialogue with them – have your messaging be personalized, relevant, and frequent enough that they feel like they know what’s going on every step of the way.

Use the same approach when dealing with your team. Usually, a brand activation team consists of people from multiple departments – marketing, branding, facilities, fleet – the list can go on! We recommend having your entire team meet on a daily, weekly, or bi-weekly basis to keep each other up-to-date on what’s going on with the project. Are there any schedule changes that need to be made? Are all asset owners on the same page as the implementation team? Be sure all lines of communication are open for dialogue.

Having a clear communication plan with your supply chain is crucial as well. Surprises always pop up in the field that, at times, require immediate attention. While it may not be feasible for you to always be on site to handle those problems, having a solid communication plan will guarantee the problem is addressed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Will you look at that? You did it! You now have the proper steps to manage your brand conversion project. It may seem a bit overwhelming, but hiring the appropriate vendors, developing an achievable timeline, and creating a communication plan with key members of your conversion team are your keys to successful project management.

If all of this sounds like too much work to do on top of your day-to-day responsibilities, Implementix can make managing your project easier. We have a user-friendly conversion dashboard accessible for anyone on your team that allows you to keep tabs on things like manufacturing, installation statuses, schedules, and budgets – anytime at any place. Want to learn more? Reach out to us here to learn how we can help you manage your next project!

The fun’s not done yet! Stay tuned for part three of this blog series where we’ll teach you how to ensure brand consistency after your conversion project is complete.