Change Management For Your Brand

An Ongoing Process for Advertising Managers and Marketers


Things change. In fact, everything changes. Sometimes in a matter of minutes. Sometimes slowly and imperceptibly. But regardless of effort, resources, management or absolute control, things change. The discipline of change management helps business executives to ensure that change works to their advantage.

Yet, frequently change management practices stop short of considering the impact that change has on one of your most important assets your company's brand. Recognizing that fact and responding to the manifestations of change with intelligent action is what separates the successful brand from the soon-to-be-forgotten product or service brand.

Maybe that's too blunt, too harsh. Perhaps we should say things evolve and pursue a more palatable approach to facing the challenges our customers, our competitors and our marketplace present. I doubt it.

While it may appear that there is plenty of time, no real threat or no urgent need to revisit your brand promotion strategies, the fact is, each and every day your competitors are looking for a way to unravel your positioning, dismiss your unique advantages and rob you of your market share.

If you enjoy brand recognition or brand advantage, a periodic fresh look at your brand is crucial. Change happens; successful companies recognize when their brand requires more than a business as usual approach. They begin with customer-focused positioning and messaging. Then they monitor and measure their brand and brand promotion strategies in key areas, such as:

-Validating language with their target audiences and monitoring their success in communicating those key messages
-Testing creative executions and adjusting as necessary
-Watching closely how their target audiences are responding to their advertising, both quantitatively and qualitatively
-Going where their customers go. They explore, they measure and they explore some more.

This is not intended as a scare tactic. In fact, this shouldn't be scary at all at least not for those advertisers and their advertising agencies that are following a prudent process that checks for the need of more aggressive branding change management measures.

Yet, it never ceases to amaze me how little well-established enterprises know about their customer base. While they can trot out statistics on sales volume, cost per lead and the like, they are often unaware of the underlying motivations that drive these people to act in their favor or dismiss them all together. They haven't yet made it past the occasional customer satisfaction survey possibly their sole view into the hearts and minds of their customers.

In the pursuit of building brand value and generating greater ROI, successful brands not only adapt to change, they anticipate it, and they respond, re-positioned if necessary, to capitalize on it. They change manage their brand.

The more unique your owned advantage is, the better it will hold up over time. Change management practices should extend to your brand promotion strategies. Practices such as measuring how your brand performs and observing the impact of change to your brand promotion strategies are key. Great campaigns often have great longevity. But nothing lasts forever.