Infusing the importance of brand in a tech-forward culture.
Most brand and marketing folks know that a formidable brand transcends mere aesthetics and marketing—it constitutes a pivotal driver of a company’s distribution strategy, even in the realm of B2B enterprises. But that may not be so obvious to engineering and tech-forward cultures, which is why the Marketing team at Applied Materials turned to Global Brand Works (GBW) for help.
The objective was to create and deliver a module to educate senior internal audiences on how the Applied Materials brand drives business success.
In Phase 1 of this initiative, GBW developed an extensive roadmap and educational module that summarizes the importance of a strong brand and why it matters to Applied Materials. Following on that, the module recommends a best practice approach to the management and governance of the brand that covers a cycle of Assessment, Brand Platform, Governance, and Core Elements. Each phase is defined as follows:
Assessment
Assessment is fundamentally an act of deep listening, essential for ensuring that the brand remains relevant, distinctive, and authentic in the business landscape. Once we gain a comprehensive understanding of the market realities through the Assessment practice, we proceed to construct the Brand Platform.
Brand Platform
The Brand Platform serves as the bedrock for the Core Elements, articulating critical aspects such as values, functional equities, emotional benefits, personality, positioning, and architecture. The Brand Platform is directly influenced by the deep listening practices established in the Assessment phase.
Core Elements
Core elements are how a brand shows up in the world – both externally and internally. The internal embodiment of the brand directly effects how the brand lives authentically and relevantly among key constituencies such as customers and clients.
Governance
Governance is the practice that safeguards adherence to best practices, ensuring consistent and appropriate brand representation. Brand Equity quantifies the financial value attributed to a brand.
With an agreed-upon and established roadmap, GBW executed a robust and extensive audit – evaluating each core element against current brand management practices, along with a recommendation and prioritization on what practices should be augmented or added, with a health respect for the budget, time and resources needed for each.
Most relevant to the C-Suite is how a strong brand contributes to business success. Pointing to data and statistics, the module shows leadership that a strong Applied Materials brand enhances business in areas such as:
| Communication and Collaboration |
| Customer Loyalty |
| Differentiation |
| Percieved Value |
| Attracting Talent |
| Trust and Reputation |
| Innovation and R&D |
| Risk Mitigation |
| Financial Values |
| Distribution and Sales |
| Product Expansion |
Here are a few pages from the highly produced training module, which was delivered with full speaker notes and a “train the trainer” session.
For me, this project gave us the rewarding feeling of getting something organized and poised for the future. I loved getting to infuse fresh focus on the importance of growing and protecting the Applied Materials brand.
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Caroline McNally and Shannon Riordan |
Shannon Riordan |