Branding Schmambing Continued – What Color Are The Business Cards Anyway? A Few Branding Examples

Air Products & Chemicals
In the early 1980's (yes, I am dating myself now) I had the grand privilege of working for Air Products & Chemicals. Before "brand" was a fledgling thought in the eyes of the business, Air Products already understood how key this was to their future success. Not only did we have very well thought out brand standards (which I helped with), but they said across all 66,000 employees, the brand must be lived. We are about quality, safety, responsiveness and helping our clients improve results. Think about it, Air Products sold air. But how and what did the liquid nitrogen mean to that company, that hospital, that assembly line? Things like making sure the 3,000 tanker trucks and delivery trucks were designed and painted to match - to stand out. That we made sure the trucks were washed once a week (others in the industry never washed their trucks) or hand wiped every cylinder when it was delivered. To systems, we put in the first telephony system for the liquid cryogenics in the world so that the cryo tanks would call the customers and say (based on their desired refill points) "I am half empty do you want me to send a truck or do you want to talk to a live person?" To the training of employees, and to the safety truck rodeos we sponsored. Even the fact that we had research labs targeting the key markets that any client could use at no cost (food freezing, steel, semiconductor etching, etc.) These were all key to the brand meaning what it did/does.

Center for Job Order Contracting Excellence
CJE transitioned from being part of Arizona State University to a stand-alone organization. I was the industry chairman during this transition. I called for a facilitated session on the strategic planning going forward (key in this was the brand development elements). Here are a few links with information worth looking at: http://www.jocexcellence.org/strategic_plans.htm
http://www.jocexcellence.org/documents/CJE_Strategic_Plan_Session.pdf
http://www.jocexcellence.org/documents/Elevator_Pitch_CJE_12-2-08.pdf
Prior to this effort we had no clear understanding of the organization’s focus, what the members want from us, etc. After going through the strategic planning process, we defined the brand to mean education and sharing best practices in JOC. One key brand platform is the website www.JOCexcellence.org, where the design, flow and message were driven by the brand vision. A second example where brand drove the elements was the development of a new simplified logo (the old one showed skyscrapers being built, when we do not support skyscrapers being built). The strategic effort has helped time and time again. When we are challenged to change or take action, we always go back to “What does this mean to the brand/what are the brand impacts—good, bad, risk, alignment?”

Branding Centennial Contractors Enterprises
I was hired in 2004 to help evolve the Centennial brand from stealth to the world class recognized industry leader that they really were and are. I started at the brand development side. I questioned everything from the mission statement, the core values, the development of a value statement, etc. There were difficult sessions from the president on down. I even talked with the competition. I wanted to know the perceptions, the beauty, the soft and the hard spots. The process took about six months to bring to a point were we could craft a branding statement and move forward. Today we have a brand store that gives insight to this brand thinking, but at the high level look at our elevator pitch. We realized that our brand was about people, solutions, and living up to our promises and that we are a different kind of company. So we made sure that we pulled this brand thinking into our themes, our designs, and our approach to all the marketing and sales. Once the brand platform is crafted and believed and understood, the communications and marketing development efforts flow from here. We realized that our key growth efforts were building brand awareness and building a body of knowledge around JOC and Centennial. We also focused on the media and public relations side based on this brand thinking.

Brand is a challenge, because if left untended and cared for it can grow all weedy and diminish over time. People begin to change it, shape it to their view and next thing you know you are no longer aligned and it is hard to be honest with yourself and the organization all the time.