DLYohn Brand-As-Business Perspectives from Jim Stengel's GROW

brand-as-business bits from Grow denise lee yohn

Jim Stengel‟s book Grow: How Ideals Power Growthand Profit at the Worlds Greatest Companies presentsbrand-building through the lens of ideals.Your brand ideal, Stengel says:• transforms the enterprise into • generates effective new a customer-understanding business models, strategies, machine. and tactics before the• helps crystallize your current ones have lost their business‟s existing and freshness and begun to potential points of parity and produce diminishing returns. points of difference with the • enables leaders to drive competition. results by being absolutely• illuminates your clear and compelling about organizational culture‟s what they value. strengths and weaknesses.

This is very much in line withthe benefits of thebrand-as-business TMmanagement approach –that is, use your brandplatform as a managementtool to fuel, align, and guideevery task you undertake.So here are some of the bestbrand-as-business bits fromGrow.

A brand is what a business is all aboutin the hearts and minds of the people most important to its future.

A brand defines who you are and what you stand for as a business toeveryone the business touches, from employees to end consumers.

John Kennedy, IBM‟s vice president for corporatemarketing, said, “The enduring idea that is the essence of IBMhas meant different things at different points in our history. Atone point, that meant automating the office. At anotherpoint, it meant helping put a man on the moon in the Apollospace program. Today it means all the systems that keep theworld working in health care, transportation, the powergrid, the infrastructures within industries.We have to talk with many audiences about thesethings, and what „building a smarter planet‟ does is it enablesus to engage all these audiences at the level of deeply heldbeliefs about the world. The conversations we have with ourcustomers, for example, they start with a shared way oflooking at the world, a common belief in how technologycan improve the world.”

Remember, if you‟re in business, you‟re in the relationship business. You‟re in the business of forgingenduring bonds with the people who are most important to your future.

Method‟s founders:If Method was going to grow, it had to brand itself from the inside out -- to “market ourselves as ourselves.”

HP executive:“Under founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, peopleinternalized the HP values and culture so deeply that theybecame the connective tissue that made HP what it was.Everybody knew that HP was about making greattechnology that made a contribution to society.But that connective tissue was weakened through thetremendous growth by acquisition. And it was not beingstrengthened because it was no longer in the dialogue andthe explicit values of the leadership. That this was missing wasreally a problem for HP people.”

Clark Bunting, President of Discovery Studios: Great brands say no. Jim Stengel:Let me put that in broader terms. Great businesses make great choices.

Bernard Arnault, CEO and chairman LVMH has said:“Star brands only stem from an artistic and creative mind,” and he insists that every one of LVMH‟s businesses must have an operator and an artist.

Never cede the leading edge of your category. You always need to beplanting seeds for new business, and they‟ve got to be the right seeds… The better you understand how your ideal connects with people‟s fundamental values andaspirations, the better sense you have of where to take the business next.

Brand experience and innovation go hand in hand.An imperfect world and a desirable brand experience that keeps changing -- that combination creates a mandate for leaders to maintain a twin focus on execution and innovation.

Each product innovation must also be an expression of the initial brand.

The more you strive to improve people‟s lives and the more youdemonstrate that in your products and services and all your interactions, the more customersand end consumers will reward you by becoming loyal advocates for your business.

Nothing is more symbolic than changing what a companyevaluates; it goes to the core valuesof the company and its leadership. Itshapes strategy making and governswho advances within the company.

Elizabeth Buse, Visa group president: “You have to perform, the businessresults have to be there. But what you do is only half of the evaluation; the other half is how you do it. We manage the what and the howequally. Because if you have the whatand you don‟t have the how, then the what will dry up over time.”

The so-called “soft stuff” is really the “hard stuff.”Nothing is harder to get right than aculture change, and nothing pays such huge dividends.

In 1980 virtually the entire marketcapitalization of the S&P 500 companiesconsisted of tangible assets (cash, offices,plants, equipment, inventories, etc.)By 2010 tangible assets accounted for only40-45% of the S&P 500 companies‟ marketcapitalization. The rest of theircapitalization consisted of intangible assets,and about half of that -- more than 30% oftotal market capitalization -- came frombrand. source: Millward Brown Optimor

The organizational work in bringing abrand ideal to life is never really done.

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DLYohn Brand-As-Business Perspectives from Jim Stengel's GROW

by Denise Yohn on Jul 18, 2012

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DLYohn Brand-As-Business Perspectives from Jim Stengel’s GROW Presentation Transcript