11 February 2005

The role of employees in building brand equity

Highlighting the importance of employees ‘living the brand’ and hearing how best to help them build brand equity was the subject of an Item event recently.

Delegates heard Giles Thomas, Director of branding and marketing company Branded and former Marketing Director of MTV and of Sega, talk about the perception of external brand and its importance on emotional engagement with audiences.

Speaker Eva Mellgren, Brand Communications Manager of global oil, energy and aluminium company Hydro, outlined how the company ‘built the brand from within’ by creating The Hydro Way. The programme created dialogue and involvement with employees through roadshows, interactive tools and multi-platform communications to help employees live, work and communicate the brand. Focusing on the company’s talents, mission and values, it brought together 36,000 employees in 40 countries and inspired a major programme of internal communication.

The speaker sessions and a related survey showed that that:

• large organisations with dispersed workforces are increasingly aware of the impact that internal communications have on a brand

• over half surveyed believed that their organisation’s brand value was enhanced/protected by internal employee communications

• over two-thirds had ongoing communications programmes designed to uphold values, if only during times of change

• change in an organization – new corporate identity, CEO, merger/acquisition, launch of new products - was seen as an opportunity to enhance the brand with internal audiences. Less than one per cent turned ‘bad news’ to their advantage.