Corporate Eye

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Archives for 2008

The New Corporate Brand Strategy

I read an article on Brandweek today about Unilever’s decision to sell its laundry care division in North America, which includes popular brands such as All, Snuggle, Wisk, Surf and Sunlight.  According to Unilever’s spokesperson, Anita Larsen, the sale will allow Unilever to focus its efforts on growing its core brands.  I can understand that much, but what concerned me as I read this article was the suggestion that Unilever’s decision is in line with a current trend of large corporations ditching brands that aren’t market leaders. 

Apparently, the new strategy is this: if a brand leads the market, keep it.  If a brand is second or lower in market share, get rid of it. [Read more…] about The New Corporate Brand Strategy

Use Your Website to Promote Your Culture

Some of my posts touched on the importance of Corporate Cultures. Culture affects how employees behave. It also has an influence on how the company is perceived by external stakeholders. So making your Culture visible is imperative and an effective method is to simply use your website.

Some of the “Best Companies” lists published by magazines, consultants and other sources are useful sources of competitive intelligence to get started. However, “Best Company Cultures” ratings are virtually non-existent. I was able to find one in Canada. It is Waterstone Human Capital’s Canada‘s 10 Most Admired Corporate CulturesTM . The 2007 winners are —

1. WESTJET AIRLINES LTD. www.westjet.com
2. FOUR SEASONS HOTELS INC. www.fourseasons.com
3. BOSTON PIZZA INTERNATIONAL. www.bostonpizza.com
4. ROYAL BANK OF CANADA. www.royalbank.com
5. YELLOW PAGES GROUP CO. www.ypg.com
6. MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. www.mapleleaf.ca
7. MANULIFE FINANCIAL CO. www.manulife.com
8. PUROLATOR COURIER LTD. www.purolator.com
9. TIM HORTONS INC. www.timhortons.com
10.TORONTO DOMINION BANK FINANCIAL GROUP www.td.com

Step one would be to visit the websites of the top rated companies to get some ideas on how to organize your Culture section. Visit the top company, WESTJET and you will see the essential ingredients –

You need to post a short description of the Culture statement, mission vision and values. You could stop here but anything that reinforces these items should be included.

If you visit Toyota Motors, a company that appears on various “Best Company” lists, you find a more glitzy and subtle approach. TOYOTA MOTORS

There are some issues with the Toyota approach, the essential ingredients not as explicit as WESTJET. You have to search to find any mention of culture. I finally found a culture statement buried in Environment Section . Toyota has a good story to tell, they just need to flaunt it.

The lesson learned is that if you want to display your Corporate Culture, keep it focused and make it easily visible.

The Know More Media Business Debacle: A Series of Unfortunate Events – Are YOU Ready For Unfortunate Events?

Numerous online website and companies use Google as a source of revenue for their product or services and also to strategize how they will align with their competitors. The competition is fierce, no doubt, and the quest to be at the top of the Google search engine in any industry is coveted by large and small businesses alike.

Major online blog networks base and build their business model around advertising sales, keyword strategizing and placement and search engine ranks. The search for being first, being on top and being the most clicked site(s) consumes most days of CEO’s, journalists, bloggers, freelance writers and online marketers. But what happens when you simply cannot compete with the stiff competition that is in Google’s tight grasp, only to be given to the highest bidder or the most prolific clicker?

Only last week, Know More Media, a large online blogging network of business news and developments, announced that they would be closing their doors forever. Know More Media had been struggling some time with ad revenue and securing sponsors to keep their network afloat, but as the business owners found out…it was too little, too late.

Blogging is a task that is easy for any writer to begin. It’s been the latest craze for a number of years. As of December 2007, Technorati (a social networking site) reported that they are tracking over 112 million blogs on their system! Blogs are created for personal journals, corporate blogs (in the case of the one I write here for Corporate-Eye) and network blogs, like the one that was maintained by Know More Media.

The ease of starting and maintaining a blog for a writer is simple. He simply writes great, compelling content, uploads it to the blog and gets paid. How simple is that? But the business end of blogging for a corporate organization or a network is wholly a different story. The corporate blog network must constantly analyze data that relates to traffic, sponsors and ads and they have to continually review conversion rates and how those numbers factor into the revenue’s bottom line. It is a business that is easy to run but is a business nonetheless. Essentially, if a network is not productive or can not generate significant revenue through their ad placements, they suffer and this can make the network unappealing to potential sponsors or those willing to place ads on the sites.

Know More Media handled the news quite well and quite professionally in letting their bloggers and the Internet public know what the turn of events would be in the upcoming weeks. There were lots of sad bloggers and lots of heated discussions in the blogosphere on the reasons why this blog network failed. No one but the executives and the founders know exactly what caused the network to crumble, but there is general agreement that in order for a network of any size to function well and stay in competition, they must be managed well, be business savvy and know the inner workings of effective strategizing, marketing and online advertising in order for the network to experience success.

I for one was one of the bloggers at the network, and was taken aback by the news. My leadership blog at Leader Notes was one that had been started by the CEO of Know More Media, Hal Halladay. When I first began blogging on the network, there was an air of positive energy, attitudes that said “full steam ahead” and a business that was dedicated to thriving and seeing their bloggers do the same. It is amazing how so much can change in such a small amount of time.

Now with so many unanswered questions looming overhead, what will happen to the blogs, the bloggers, the founders and the network as a whole? How does a company bounce back from such a devastating action? What steps can your company take to ensure that this type of thing is avoided? Although the network is leaving and there are a number of bloggers in indecisive states, Know More Media is an unfortunate example of how quickly a business can take a turn for the worst. They have shown us all that we must carefully make provisions for the unknown and constantly think two to three frames ahead of ourselves in our business mind frame. I now speculate perhaps how they wish they had the chance to re-think all of their decisions…again.

Pricking the Balloon of Corporate Hot Air

They are the crème de la crème, the cat’s whiskers, the dog’s … whatsits.

They are the best. At the pinnacle of their respective industries they are the global leaders of their time. Superlatives cannot be heaped too highly, one atop the other, to describe how highly these companies are regarded.

They are the FT Global 500: the top 500 worldwide corporations, ranked by according to market value. Few facts about them will surprise you.

For instance: nearly 15% of the companies are Banks, making it the largest sector in the list; and three of the top five companies are Oil & Gas Producers, spanning the USA, Russia and China.

The clout of these companies cannot be over estimated. The combined market value of the top ten Banks and the top three Oil & Gas Producers is over $2.4bn. This makes them more influential as a bloc than the combined FT500 companies of any nation except the USA.

Which is why the latest report by the Ethical Corporation Institute is so disappointing.

Ethical Corporation InstituteGHG Report 2008 Summary Frontpage

Inconsistent Emissions
Based upon the FT500 companies’ responses to the fifth Carbon Disclosure Project, the survey has collated and analysed statistics about how the companies are reporting their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Their conclusion, published in the Corporate Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting 2008 report, is that there is a huge disparity between the methodologies FT500 companies use to calculate their emissions.

For example, 34 different methods were used within the 500, with no consistency being shown by either individual sectors or geographic regions. This makes any comparison between companies, sectors or countries almost impossible to achieve.

In addition only half of those surveyed used a recognised standard to verify their emissions figures and of those using the most widely recognised methodology, the WBCSD/WRI GHG Protocol, less than half had their figures independently verified.

From Peanuts to Financial Performance
On the fiscal side the survey revealed the cost of collecting and independently verifying GHG emission data is around $2m. This is about one hundredth of a percentage of the market value of Henkel, the smallest company in the FT500. To you and me: Peanuts.

Compare this to how the same companies handle their annual accounts. Here they are regulated with most countries following either the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS, formerly the IAS).

In addition, published financial figures have to be independently verified by a competent and recognised auditor. Henkel spent $13m on audit services alone in 2007, six times the hypothetical ceiling for GHG emission figure collation and auditing.

It’s worth pointing out that this comparison confirms the belief that once an area becomes regulated it is immediately more expensive for a company to service.

All the investors questioned in the survey suggested that the companies they invested in were using inadequate standards. Unsurprisingly, they also suggested that those standards could be improved by linking carbon performance reporting with the company’s financials.

The FT500

Ouch .. as in OUCH!!
This post could end there by echoing the sentiments in Front Seat Sustainability or Squirrels of Sustainability, repeating the need for companies to work together on methodologies and standards in order to stay ahead of regulation.

However, there is a far sharper end to this stick than an in-principle call to arms.

In 2013, four-and-a-half years from now, EU energy producers will start trading carbon emissions under the Emissions Trading Scheme. In addition, UK companies will be subject to the more far-reaching Carbon Reduction Commitment.

Taken together these two initiatives will push up electricity prices by over 40%, according to estimates from the EU and the UK Government. Both are also planning to extend their schemes to cover all major business sectors shortly after 2013.

GHG emissions will suddenly become very expensive and investors, recognising that a non-standard approach is always more risky, are likely to look less favourably upon this bickering over methodologies.

In addition the survey suggests the costs of reporting and auditing emission figures could rise by a factor of six if they become regulated.

In short, businesses need to look urgently at how they report GHG emissions and adopt a standard which is not only transparent and comparable but also accepted amongst their peers.

Those which don’t could find the medium term financial costs will, quite literally, cripple them.

Photo Credit: brianfit

4 Faces of Branding

Every brand wears multiple hats, meaning it portrays a slightly different face to different audiences.  Typically, there are four main faces of branding that every brand portrays to the different audiences that see it and experience it.

Your Brand’s Face to Your Business

Your brand represents a specific image, message and promise that supports your overall business.  Analysts, investors, reporters, shareholders, business partners and so on typically see this face of your brand.

Your Brand’s Face to Your Employees

Your brand represents a specific image, message and promise to your employees that makes it meaningful and motivational.  This is the face of your brand that makes people want to work for your company.  This brand face is particularly important for companies that grow through mergers and acquisitions and need to integrate multiple sub-brands under a single company brand umbrella.

Your Brand’s Face to Your Customers

Your brand represents a specific image, message and promise to your existing customers that makes it meaningful to them and helps them develop an emotional connection and relationship with it.  This is the face of your brand that makes people want to buy your products and do business with your company again and again.

Your Brand’s Face to Non-Customers

Your brand represents something completely different to non-customers who have not yet experienced it first-hand.  This is the face of your brand that requires a significant investment in terms of developing awareness, recognition and expectations for it in order to drive non-customers to action and turn them into brand users and eventually loyal customers.

Take some time to evaluate the four faces of your brand.  Do they match?  If not, is there a valid reason why they’re different?  The strongest brands represent a consistent image and promise across all four faces with targeted messaging that enhances that face but doesn’t change it.  What do you need to do to make sure the four faces of your brand are consistent across all touch points of your business?  Making the necessary changes now will strengthen your brand in the long term.

Image: Flickr

Brand vs. Commodity

The next time someone in your company suggests to you that investing in brand development, positioning and messaging isn’t important, remind them that without your brand, you’d have little left to compete with than price.  In other words, without your brand, you’re just another commodity.

Certainly, your products and company offer features and benefits that consumers want and need, but it’s your brand that makes those features and benefits recognizable and preferred.  Those features and benefits are extensions of your brand.  Will they function on their own without a brand to support them?  Perhaps, but a brand makes those features and benefits much more powerful and helps to further differentiate them from anything else available on the market.  The brand makes them special and makes customer loyalty possible. [Read more…] about Brand vs. Commodity