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1/4/2009 - Where Do Great Brands Come From: Larry Ackerman and the Gates Corporation Case Study
So, where do great brands come from? Do they somehow just become associated with a few special – or lucky – companies, or is there something more to it?
These questions were answered at BMA Colorado’s luncheon on December 10, which featured Larry Ackerman, the pioneer of identity-based management. Ackerman provided an introduction to branding and what makes a great brand, and in conjunction with Rich Carvill, the corporate brand-marketing manager for Gates Corporation, he presented a case study on the recent work they have done at Gates.
Ackerman is the president and founder of The Identity Circle and a leading authority on organizational identity. He has 25 years of experience studying the connection between human identity and organizational identity and his clients have included Fidelity Investments, Dow Chemical, Upjohn, Alcoa and Maytag. Before forming his own company, Ackerman spent a decade at a leading strategic branding firm, Siegal & Gale.
What Makes a Great Brand?
Ackerman began the discussion by pointing out that before one can address the issue of what makes a great brand, it’s essential to answer a fundamental question: Exactly what is a brand?
Perhaps the best way to answer that question is to start by explaining what a brand is not: It is not a company’s name, logo or tagline. Rather, a company’s brand is the promise that a company makes to its stakeholders. This promise, Ackerman explained, is based on the company’s unique characteristics that define its value-creating potential.
A great brand, he continued, is one that stands the test of time by being inclusive, constant, dynamic and far-reaching, and by acting as a lever for change and a catalyst of growth. Let’s look at each of these elements in turn:
• Inclusive: The brand makes a promise that includes all stakeholders
• Constant: The promise doesn’t change…
• Dynamic: …but its expression does change
• Far-reaching: The brand creates not just customer value, but societal value
• A lever for change: The brand helps make operations more efficient
• A catalyst of growth: The brand creates demand for growth of the organization – and not just its products and services
Brand Challenge: Gates Corporation
After this introduction to branding, Ackerman invited Rich Carvill to join him on the stage, where the two spoke of their work to help the Gates Corporation clarify its identity and build its brand.
Gates is the Denver-based, global manufacturing company that for nearly a century has been, as its tagline states, “The world’s most trusted name in belts, hoses and hydraulics.”
The three-part challenge facing Gates – and its reason for engaging with Ackerman – was the company’s need to build institutional loyalty and move beyond a culture of separate silos infused with “aggressive autonomy,” while simultaneously keeping them strong and independent businesses, all with the goal of enabling the company’s global growth.
Ackerman and Carvill led Gates on an intensive internal and external discovery process that included executive interviews, more than 5,000 employee surveys and both qualitative and quantitative customer research. Additionally, the process incorporated an audit that included extensive analysis of the company history, existing Gates research and communications, competitive brand positioning, best practice role models and marketplace forces.
An analysis of Gates’ businesses – Power Transmission, Fluid Power and Automotive Aftermarket – revealed that they all create value in distinct yet similar ways, with a focus on enabling movement. This insight helped the company to determine that its identity was that it “keeps progress in motion by developing quality solutions for customers, partners and the world at large.”
Ackerman went on to describe the development of the Gates brand platform, building on the company’s identity to flesh out its Capacities (unique value-creating charachteristics), Values (what the company stands for) and Voice (how it reveals its identity to its many stakeholders).
Of course, all that self-study and analysis will be useful to Gates only if it can help the company address the brand challenges mentioned earlier. So, how are they doing? Ackerman and Carvill described the progress to date, which at the strategic level included the development of a customer-focused brand architecture, the leadership’s drive to become “One Gates” and the commitment of the executive team to a “Promise for Progress.”
Next up: Implementation, which includes the incorporation of Gates’ Brand Promise into the company’s global HR management system, a “One Gates” Visual Identity System to be developed and implemented globally and the introduction of the “Promise for Progress” leadership platform to the company’s 15,000 associates.
What You Can Do
Ackerman completed the presentation by pointing out that all marketing professionals can have a real impact on the development of great brands by actively educating and leading others in the organization. Specifically, marketing pros should do the following:
• Take a broad view of what constitutes a company’s brand – and engage their colleagues in that discussion
• Speak of organizational identity and value creation with senior executives, educating them as to the benefits of a strong brand
• Lead cross-functional teams in brand strategy and enlist employees as the front lines of implementation
• Apply loyalty gauges when measuring success
Perhaps the ultimate takeaway from Ackerman and Carvill’s presentation is that successful brand strategy initiative is not for the weak of heart. It is labor-intensive and challenging work that can make significant demands on executives and associates alike. Ultimately, however, it can be spectacularly rewarding when one sees the positive, value-creating impact that it can make on an organization and its people.
Larry Ackerman’s books include Identity is Destiny: Leadership and the Roots of Value Creation and The Identity Code: The 8 Essential Questions for Finding Your Purpose and Place in the World, both of which are available at www.theidentitycode.com.
Sidebar: What Makes a Great Branding Expert?
In discussing Larry Ackerman, Claude Singer, a professor of brand strategy and a blogger at brandsinger, writes, “[Ackerman’s] methodology is sophisticated – intensely probing an organization’s business via a range of research techniques. But his goal is reductionism – to find the single shared competency.”
Singer goes on to say, “If branding were religion, Ackerman would be a resolute fundamentalist. If branding were music, he would be a purist – listening to the drone of waterfalls and pounding out rhythms with a stick. His drive is a relentless quest for one prize: The beating heart of a brand – an organization’s unique value-producing role in society’s complex web.”
Larry Ackerman’s books include Identity is Destiny: Leadership and the Roots of Value Creation and The Identity Code: The 8 Essential Questions for Finding Your Purpose and Place in the World, both of which are available at www.theidentitycode.com.
About the Author: Phil Nugent, MBA, is a member of BMA Colorado’s executive board. As the president of Nugent Consulting Group, Phil is a strategic marketing, corporate communications and Web 2.0 consultant who helps companies find their voice.
Phone: 303.641.7001
Email: philnugent@yahoo.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/philnugent
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