Inner branding.

• Author: Bernstel, Janet Bigham
• Position: Financial institutions need to focus on staff when brand-building - Cover Story

When building a brand, most banks concentrate on external communication to the customer-or potential customer. But there's another vital audience: the institution's own employees. Without their buy-in and commitment, no program will endure.

Financial institutions spend hundreds of thousands of dollars n campaigns to promote their brand externally. However, the most important audience, the bank staff, is often overlooked. An organization cannot deliver on its brand promise if the employees don't know or care about it. To become a true brand-building organization from the inside out is very viable, says marketing consultant Brad VanAuken, but top management must stop giving lip service to the vision of the brand- and start living it.

"Senior managers say one thing to the public, but in fact they're only looking at the bottom line and their culture is radically different," says VanAuken president of BrandForward Inc., and author of "Brand Aid." "Those organizations have an uphill battle in terms of aligning the company with the brand and delivering some message to the outside world that's believable, compelling and that people find admirable."

As evidence, VanAuken cites a 1998 study conducted by the Conference Board on "Managing the Corporate Brand." Four organizational support factors were identified as critical to brand strategy success:

* CEO leadership and support.

* A distinctive corporate culture that serves as a platform for the brand promise.

* The alignment of brand messages across functions.

* The ability to obtain support from a broad spectrum of employees.

Initiate alignment

Brands are typically a company's most valuable asset, along with its people, and the two need to be closely aligned. It's not an overnight process, but one that can be initiated in stages. A good starting point is to incorporate the brand message into every aspect of bank business. That's what Plymouth Savings Bank of southeastern Massachusetts did during a rebranding effort they began in the spring of 2001.

"If you can't align the brand internally first, you won't succeed," states Haden Edwards, partner of Tracey/Edwards, the New York marketing firm hired to complete the rebranding. "Companies need to be able to speak with one voice-it's really part of strategic awareness."

Internal branding ideas for Plymouth Savings Bank staff were discussed early on in strategic planning sessions, along with what the new brand would look and feel like. Eventually, every employee was given a wallet card with the bank's mission statement, rewritten to reflect the new positioning, along with a new set of written cultural priorities for the organization.

"We started a real emphasis on how we were going to market this to the employees," explains Karen Quinn, senior vice president and marketing director for the Wareham, Mass-based bank. "First we wanted to get them feeling good about it as well as believing in the brand promise we're trying to make."

By February 2002, employees had been exposed to research showing that customers viewed them as a high-performance bank. The new tagline, "Plymouth Savings Bank Performs" was revealed, and the internal branding campaign set in full motion. The company intranet is regularly engaged to communicate directly with employees, displaying everything on the home page from rebranding party invitations (using flash animation) to performance profiles. New media ads are enlarged to poster size and placed in popular meeting rooms.

Quinn claims that there are many more efforts underway, such as updating training manuals. But she made sure that the brand promise and...