It goes without saying, it takes way more than simply a product or service to create a meaningful brand. For a brand to become truly memorable, the company behind the brand needs to create the impression that it is living the brand. Exactly how a company achieves this is very dependent on effective internal marketing and training to achieve a full buy in from every employee within the organization. Companies need to ensure that the brand values are consistently and effectively communicated at every level.
In order for the brand values to be consistently communicated through everything the company does, requires the company to map out and plan every point of contact so as to ensure that the correct message is conveyed at every point. Touch points are the points at which consumers are in contact with the brand and will include things such as web sites, retail outlets, advertisements etc. These touch points need to be geared towards serving the brand purpose. To explain this further lets explore the First National Bank (FNB) brand.
According to The Bankers 2018 ranking, FNB was ranked as South Africa’s most valuable bank and is currently one of South Africa’s big 5 banks (Wikipedia ) The bank offers a number of banking solutions both in the personal banking sector as well as in the business banking sector. The most common touch points of this banking brand include their large foot print of branches and ATM’s, as well as their online banking platforms, Apps and then of course their call centers which are further broken down into numerous sub sections, namely credit card, business etc.
The touch points of FNB are vast and the brand has done a good job of mapping these out and establishing a culture amongst its employees to effectively serve the brand purpose in alignment with their tagline “How can we help you”. In order to achieve this, FNB has had to get a full buy in from all employees within their organisation.
Looking at the careers section on the First Rand Limited website www.fnb.co.za, it becomes evident that the process of establishing employee buy in in order to create a brand culture starts right at the beginning of the recruitment process. Following on from recruitment, FNB has implemented an internal marketing process which is geared to serve the brand purpose and to remind employees of this purpose. The FNB internal marketing has been effective in making their employees feel that they are part of something bigger.
Through their internal marketing process, the employees are encouraged to be entrepreneurs within the organisation and they have effectively instilled an owner manager culture where people work in smaller groups. The company culture has been to instill accountability, ethics, effectiveness, helpfulness and innovation into the heart and minds of their employees.
The only way that any internal marketing campaign is able to achieve a full buy in from employees, is for it to have full and total commitment from top management down. FNB has taken its branding seriously at every level and have effectively embedded a brand culture within its organisation that is line with its brand values.
The FNB internal marketing process has been very effective in establishing the employee culture that serves the brand purpose and this has been instrumental in shaping the public’s perception of their brand. This culture is communicated not only through their employees, but also in their innovative banking solutions which are seen to help make peoples lives easier.
It is no easy task to achieve a full employee buy into your brand, and the only way for any organisation to achieve this is through effective internal marketing. Without your employees involvement it is impossible to communicate a consistent brand message to your target audience. In my opinion, FNB has been very good at creating an internal marketing system which serves the purpose of their brand.
References:- http://www.fnb.co.za
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