Shape of Things

I was talking with a friend this morning who is selling his company on the idea of internal branding. It seems everybody in this fast-growing company has a different story on who the company is and what it does.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a bad thing. After all, if it’s internal, who cares? Let everyone make up their own stories about their employer.

Only problem is that there’s no such thing as internal when it comes to communications, especially now when everyone has personal broadcasting channels and the enterprise might be spread throughout the world. So, as controlling as it might sound, spreading the brand identity internally is just as important — perhaps even more so — than what a company says externally.

Given this environment, companies have to ask themselves: Do our major shareholders, our employees, really know our story, and are they invested enough in it to spread the word?

If you have even a passing familiarity with advertising, you know David Ogilvy.  His ads for Hathaway shirts, Schweppes, Rolls Royce and other clients are legendary.  But, as a recent biography illustrates, Ogilvy’s biggest legacy is not clever headlines and ad campaigns (much of which are dated today), but how he built a brand inside his own organization, then spread it to the world.

As head of his own agency, Ogilvy spent most of his time building and refining the internal story. This wasn’t the yawn-inducing stuff of values, mission statements and goals, but an ever-evolving manifesto that united and excited Ogilvy and Mather employees across the globe.

After inculcating his agency’s story internally, Ogilvy shared much of his content with the world in the best-selling book, Confessions of an Advertising Man.  The book made him a household name and had clients beating a path to his door.

Few companies, of course, have a story (or a writer to document it) that will become a best seller.  But, every company has a story waiting to be told and spread – a story that uniquely identifies who they are and why they matter.

How the story is told doesn’t matter much: It can be a printed document, an online illustrated narration, a comic-book serial, a series of presentations or videos. Whatever the media, it should resonate with employees.

Your internal story should be perpetually alive, continually evolving with the company.  Get employees involved in contributing their insights and anecdotes.  Make the story an essential tool for orienting new employees and making sure established employees keep up-to-date.

Once you’ve established the story internally, push select portions out to the world at large.

Many companies work on their outside branding without having established a story within their organizations. That seems backward.  Think like Ogilvy and do it the inside-out way.