BrandQuest was at Adelaide airport recently where we noticed a brand new brand, or was it?
Now if you don’t know who pwc is then you could be forgiven for thinking that this was an ad for Viagra or perhaps a garden fertilizer.
Jokes aside, this is actually a highly expensive airport advertisement and part of a national multi-media campaign for the world’s second largest accounting and advisory services company pwc, perhaps more widely known as Pricewaterhousecoopers.
It is not for us to comment here on the pros and cons of the look and feel of the above brand messaging, although in relative terms that this execution could be considered conservative when compared to an earlier re-branding initiative of the PriceWaterhouseCoopers consulting practice in May, 2002 to the name of ‘Monday’ -- incidentally this task was undertaken by the same brand consultancy (Wolff Olins).
Some might argue that it was fortuitous that within 5 months of that particular re-brand the aptly named ‘Monday’ was formally purchased by IBM (on a Wednesday) and the nomenclature and branding was never to see the start of a new week as it was subsequently rolled into the IBM brand identity.
However, lets return to the newly incarnated pwc. What you are see above is a very small part of a much larger international roll-out that is reported to have cost pwc between $100 million and $200 million (even based at the higher end, that figure represents just 0.25% of pwc’s combined annual revenue of US$26billion in 2009)!
What piqued our interest - and the real purpose of this article - is that in passing conversation we asked a consultant working within the organisation what he thought of the new branding. His reply was; “he was blown away”.
He said, “The launch was done globally and seamlessly. Still don't know how they did it so smoothly” He went on to say “we switched off our computers one night and the next morning when we rebooted them the new brand was just there.”
We then enquired of him “why did pwc change and what does the new logo mean or represent?” His response to us was incredibly interesting as he replied quite candidly that he did not know, nor had he or any of his colleagues been briefed on the change.
To us at BrandQuest - irrespective of whether you like the new pwc branding or not - pwc has failed in a fundamental process of brand change.
Why? Well, in the world’s second largest consulting firm – who’s website and corporate literature professes their core asset as; ‘their people’ - they have failed to inform the most important asset in their business (i.e. their people) just exactly what their new brand stands for.
Now presumably the internal marketing team responsible for this change may argue that the people who count (e.g. the partners) know exactly why they re-branded; but to us at BrandQuest that is simply not good enough.
WHEN IT COMES TO BRAND CHANGE – IGNORANCE IS CERTAINLY NOT BLISS
If and when a company changes its brand then everyone, and we mean everyone from managing partner to the photocopy assistant in India, must be engaged in the transition and must be made aware of why the company has changed its branding.
Unfortunately in this regard pwc is not alone. We recently met with another large publicly listed Australian company which, as a result of a recent merger, required a new brand and similarly the re-branding was rolled out via the media with great fan-fare …and unfortunately thrust upon the staff with no consultation, no briefing and sadly, no idea of why their company had changed!
The commercial reality of course is that, for a host of perfectly good reasons, many companies have a perfectly sound and commercial need to update and evolve (or revolutionize) their brands.
However, without a fully considered marketing strategy that articulates the reason for the change, the vision of the new brand and the audiences (that means internal and external) then this really becomes a cosmetic makeover at best and has failed to have total engagement and impact at all touch-points of the brand.
So what would BrandQuest Recommend?
Like anything that requires change in life, the best way to facilitate this is to fully engage and fully inform.
In the case of re-branding we would always recommend as a minimum that everyone in the organisation be informed of why the re-brand is happening, what it means to them and to their customers - and how that they can best help communicate the changes.
At BrandQuest we recommend the following when undertaking a brand change process:
- Develop a robust marketing strategy that, amongst other outcomes, defines the creative canvas for the brand. The marketing strategy should also include and define the future brand vision and the answers to two fundamental BrandQuestions: ‘What you need to say’? And ‘How you should say it’?
- Based on the marketing strategy outputs, objectively audit the current brand and determine if the current branding requires updating. Be prepared to share the audit information with all to demonstrate why the brand requires change.
- Ensure that senior management are involved in the change process. The brand change must be embraced from the top of the company down. As discussed in many of our previous articles the success of the brand change is based on discipline and consistency.
- Where possible, engage the whole company so all employees feel a sense of engagement and are involved and know what is occurring. While we do not believe you need to go into such details as to what colours or typography they prefer, you can involve them through surveys of their thoughts, potentially letting them help in the selection of final logos or at the very least have company wide meetings to explain the rebrand and why.
- Before the public brand launch, ensure that everyone within the company (and its immediate partners, suppliers, distributors, bankers etc), know what the new brand stands for and why it has been changed.
- Finally, develop a one page explanation of the new brand and a list of FAQ’s for distribution to staff and potentially, posting on the corporate website.
Summary.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE BRAND ITS ABOUT THE PEOPLE
The most important process of brand-change is your ‘people’.
They will make the difference between success and failure. Companies can ill-afford to develop a new brand or change an existing brand, without thinking about the change and its impact on all stakeholders.
At BrandQuest we often compare a brand to a person, you would be left confused and unsure if that person ‘overnight’ changes his or her dress and personality. If however you provide a sound and understandable reason for the change, then that change can be refreshing and beneficial.