A classic push-pull between functions and narratives creates real risk to business strategy. Tim Riches explains.
The lines between company brand strategy and culture shaping have become increasingly blurred.
In today’s market, 50 per cent of ‘brand’ projects now include a culture component – from an EVP (Employee Value Proposition) to the defining of purpose, values or mission. This is a noticeable change over the last few years.
This shines a light on a classic debate: does culture build brand or is it the other way around?
The case for brand driving culture
It’s sometimes said that brand is about the expectation people have before they meet you. And this expectation can drive a self-fulfilling effect on culture.
Culture – in the form of interpersonal chemistry or capability – is defining for some companies. Think JB HiFi, Virgin or McKinsey. When you say the name, the people come immediately to mind.
In fact, for brands like AAMI and Singapore Airlines, customer-facing people are literally distinctive assets.
Some companies have icons and myths central to both brand and culture such as RACV, RACQ and NRMA’s ‘man in the van’. While these organisations have changed significantly over the years, the competent, approachable ‘never let you down’ character persists as a valuable brand asset and cultural legacy.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise these brands attract certain kinds of people – they identify with the brand and embrace the expectation that falls on them to deliver the brand’s promise. Brands intentionally recruit these people because cultural fit is also brand fit.
Brand very clearly can drive culture.
Can culture drive brand?
Some brands become famous for their culture. Just ask Richard Branson.
In practical terms, managing people and culture (P&C) to define a consistent outcome is a lot harder than managing the brand. It’s basic good management to equip people with the tools and mandate to manage the brand. It’s not so easy with the people themselves – building cultural consistency through behaviour and leadership.
But culture can create the conditions for great brands. For example, Pixar embraces positive creative tension to transform ideas into masterpieces, building a brand synonymous with quality storytelling.
Many professional services firms operate on this basis – including ad agencies. A creative, stimulating, productive culture is central to the brand value proposition to clients. Great Place to Work results sit alongside industry awards in pitch decks.
Similarly, Hilton views workplace culture as its brand's backbone which earned the business Fortune Magazine’s title of World's Best Workplace, enabling significant business expansion and brand value growth.
In these examples, nurturing culture is building the brand.
It’s AND not OR
Don’t we love a false dichotomy?
In the real world, both brand and culture projects are dimensions of business strategy.
Brand explores and defines what we need to be famous for to get where we want to go.
Culture is the people dimension of that, which for some brands is a key pillar of their reputation.
Regardless, the practical measures call for clear and agreed connections to business strategy for both brand and culture. You need to determine the why, what and how of the outcomes each is driving.
Alignment is key
Sometimes we can work to an integrated ‘strategy on a page’.
When people are central to the brand, it can be a single framework with shared culture and brand elements which pays a valuable simplicity dividend.
Take the example of a brand in the well-being sector whose well-embedded values are Bold, Warm and Honest. These values also play the role of brand personality guiding distinctive brand expression. This is helpful for the brand team in joining the dots for the wider organisation – given brand is about externalising who they are and showing up authentically in their marketing.
Or consider the professional body with the organisational purpose: Partners for Progress. This is also the brand’s promise to and on behalf of members. The commercial relevance, professional integrity and overall impact delivered to and by the members – thanks to their training – is both purpose and promise together.
Bringing it to life
Because of the differences between them, and the level of detail required, you may need two frameworks for brand and culture. But they should share structure: aim for the same number of brand pillars and organisational values, with each responding to the same underlying theme.
Considered project design and governance is key to minimising duplication of effort and logical sequencing of milestones.
Next, you’ll need an integrated implementation/engagement plan to bring it to life as a single program of work, connected to the organisation’s strategy. That feels simple, exciting and inclusive to your people.
If you’re staging an intervention in the life of the business – be it a brand or culture project – the smart play is to join the dots between these two domains in whatever way you can. After all, both are critical enablers of business success.
In today’s pressurised business environment, the common enemy is the confusion and inefficiency that arise from conflicting brand and culture projects.
The debate about whether brand shapes culture or the other way around isn’t about picking a side. It’s more a case of understanding shared impact.
Smart businesses connect both effectively, creating a strong and unified organisational identity.
Tim Riches is the Group Strategy Director at branding agency Principals.