Mixing tartanpaint

Is this your company? (Think carefully before you answer)

Animation, a skeleton with muscular structures, something you would see in a biology text book, walking randomly down the street approaching people and sending them fleeing with fear to all corners. Godzilla without the scales and appropriate scary music

Voice over ?

You thought you?d built it all, it can move, it breathes, it can run fast, it can jump, it can even think, it has a brain, what else could it possibly need?

Is this your company? (Think carefully before you answer)

Pause

Animation, a ?normal human being? doing the same thing with smiles handshakes, pats on the back and eventually a woman throws her arms around him and they walk away together, appropriate light daytime, ?lovely day? music

Voice over?

A company strategy (what we are and the competencies that define what we are), is important, but without a clear picture of who we are, a face, a personality, a belief system (brand) and the appropriate behaviour, people at best shy away, some run away.

Who would you build a relationship with?

Let?s look deeper

Title: Corporate strategy address to top 100 managers

Animation, skeleton man at the front of an auditorium and people, confused, bemused, some hiding their face, some turning away, some leaving the audience

Voice over

Company strategy without brand and behaviour, at best won?t be understood, at worst people will leave the company

Title: Beating the competition

Animation, an identity parade of skeleton men with the letters a, b, c, d etc around their neck, some small, some tall, some with eyes some without, some with brains some without and one Frankenstein (smiling nervously). A customer walking up and down the line is unable to choose.

Voice over

Company strategy without brand and behaviour and you won?t stand out from the crowd and even if you did it might not be convincing

So what was your answer?

If it sounds too familiar don?t worry, all too often this is the case. Time and again opportunities are lost because of a lack of focus on brand and behaviour.

Examples

Symptom

Conglomerate is well known and is well-respected and it?s been around for a while, but struggles to build purchase consideration ahead of the competition and the stock market values the parts more than the whole.

Diagnosis

Customers and stockholders know what the company is and the products it produces and even it?s results.

But?

They don?t know what it stands for and are confused by its actions which seem inconsistent with it?s statement of intent hence the lack of interest in building a relationship (aka buying products and stock)

Symptom

Results have been moderate, growth has been in low single figures for the last 10 years but profits have grown through efficiency drives, process and resource reengineering exercises, leading to divestments and redundancies

Diagnosis

New value creation is stuck in the corporate strategy paradigm, the company knows what it is and what it?s good at and is working incredibly hard at becoming better at delivering what it is, the company needs to also look at their business through a brand lens and behave differently.

You get the picture, take a look at your company movie and decide whether it?s scary or not and if it is, do something about it.

Mark Kerray is Global Brand Director bij Philips en Managing Director van Tartanpaint Inc.