How your brand can win through your culture.

1. WHITE BRAND = CULTURE:
PAPER HOW CULTURE CAN HELP YOUR BRAND WIN
Graham Robertson | President of Beloved Brands Inc.

2. Brand = Culture:
How Culture Can Help Your Brand Win.
Most people think that that Brand is what the Marketers do. And Culture
should be left to the Human Resources department. But in reality,
everyone is responsible for both Brand and Culture. Creating a Branded
Culture might be a great chance for Marketing and HR to be working
together, and find ways to involve everyone from the Brand. The new
Brand Leader has to understand that marketing is more than just TV ads
and more than just Facebook likes. Brand is about the experience that
consumers walk away with. If I am going through the drive-through at 4am
or on the phone with customer service or getting an email with a Visa
“special offer” from the Bank where I have my Visa, I am in constant judgment of your brand.
Beloved = Power:
The more loved a
Brand, then the
more powerful
and valuable that
Brand is.
In the consumer’s mind,
brands sit on a Brand Love
Curve, with brands going
from Indifferent to Like
It to Love It and finally
becoming a Beloved Brand
for Life.At the Beloved stage,
demand becomes desire,
needs become cravings,
thinking is replaced with © Beloved Brands Inc.
feelings. Consumers become
outspoken fans. It’s thisconnection that helps drivepower for your brand: power versus competitors, versus
customers, versus suppliers and even versus the same consumers you’re connected with. The farther along
the curve, the more power for the brand. It’s important that you understand where your brand sits on the Love
Curve and begin figuring out how to move it along towards becoming a Beloved Brand.
The more loved the Brand, the More Valuable the Brand Visit the blog at beloved-brands.com

3. 5 Ways that Brands Connect
Brands are able to generate love for their brand when the consumer does connect with the brand. I wish
everyone would stop debating what makes a great brand and realize that all five connectors matter:
promise, strategy, story,
innovation and
experience. The first
connector is the Brand
Promise, which connects when
the brand’s main Benefit
matches up to the needs of
consumers. Once knowing
that promise, everything else
feeds off that Promise. For
Volvo the promise is Safety, for
Apple it is Simplicity and FedEx
it might be Reliability. It’s
important to align your
Strategy and Brand Story pick
the best ways to communicate
the promise, and then aligning
your Innovation and the
Experience so that you deliver © Beloved Brands Inc.
to the promise. To ensure the
Innovation is aligned, everyone in R&D must be working towards delivering the brand promise. You don’t
create a new brand promise based on what you invent. If someone at Volvo were to invent the fastest car on
the planet, should they market it as the safe-fast car or should they just sell the technology to Ferrari.
Arguably, Volvo could make more money by selling it to a brand where it fits, rather than trying to change
people’s minds. As for the experience, EVERYONE in the company has to buy into and live up to the Brand
Promise. As you can start to see, embedding the Brand Promise right into the culture is essential to the
brand’s success.
With each stage of the Brand Love Curve, the consumer will see your brand differently.The worst case
is when consumers have “no opinion” of your brand. They just don’t care. It’s like those restaurants you stop
at in the middle of no-where that are called “restaurant”. In those cases, there is no other choice so you may
as well just name it restaurant. But in highly competitive markets, you survive by being liked, but you thrive by
being loved. Be honest with yourself as to what stage you are at, and try to figure out how to be more loved,
with a vision of getting to the Beloved Brand stage.
The more loved the Brand, the More Valuable the Brand Visit the blog at beloved-brands.com

4. It starts with the
Brand DNA
Everything in the company should
feed off the Brand DNA. The Brand
DNA (some call it the Brand Essence)
is the most succinct definition of the
Brand. For Volvo, it’s “Safety”, while
BMW might be “Performance” and
Mercedes is “Luxury”. The Tool I use
to determine a Brand’s DNA revolves
around the Brand’s personality, the
products and services the brand
provides, the internal beacons that
people internally rally around when
thinking about the brand and
consumer views of the Brand. What
we normally do is brainstorm 3-4 First exposed to the DNA tool at Level5 Strategy
words in each section and then
looking collectively begin to frame the Brand’s DNA with a few words or a phrase to which the brand can stand
behind.
The DNA helps Guide the Brand’s
Management
The Brand DNA should help frame 1) Brand Plan that drives the business
for the upcoming year or the next 5 years 2) Brand Positioning that
connects to the consumer through marketing communications 3)
Customer Value Proposition that links the consumer needs to the
benefits of the brand 4) Go-To-Market strategy that frames the
distribution and the selling process 5) Cultural Beacons that help define
the brand internally through values, inspiration and challenge and
finally 6) Business Results, with each brand offering a unique way that it makes money. Each of these six
needs feed off the Brand DNA, look to the definition as a guideline for how to align to the brand.
When you begin to blow this out one step further, you can start to see where the complexity comes into play
with each of the six areas have their own needs that should still feed off that Brand DNA.
The more loved the Brand, the More Valuable the Brand Visit the blog at beloved-brands.com

5. © Beloved Brands Inc.
The DNA sets up the Brand Values
Great Brand Leaders should be looking at the culture as an opportunity to win in the market place. No matter
how good your promise is, if you’re company
is not set up to deliver that promise,
everything comes crashing down. The brand
story told within the company is even more
important than what you might tell the
market through your advertising.
Managing organizational culture is very
challenging. The DNA should provide an
internal beacon for all the People in the
organization to follow and deliver the brand
promise. As you move along the Brand Love
Curve from Indifferent to Like It to Love It
and on to Beloved status, you need to make
sure the culture keeps pace with where the
brand is.
While the DNA can provide the internal beacon, it might not be enough to capture all the behaviors. Brand
Values should come from the DNA, and act as guideposts to ensure that the behavior of everyone in
The more loved the Brand, the More Valuable the Brand Visit the blog at beloved-brands.com

6. the organization is set to deliver upon the Brand’s promise. How do you want your people to show up?
What type of service do you want? How
much emphasis on innovation? What type
of people do you want to hire? What
behavior should be rewarded and what
behavior is off-side. Having the right Brand
Values will help you answer these
questions. The Brand Values become an
extension of what the Brand Leader wants
the brand to stand for.
A great example of Brand Values is the
Virgin Group of Companies defines what
each value is, but also what it shouldn’t be.
I love that Fun means enjoyment but not
incompetent and Value means simple but
not cheap.
The Right People Leadership Matters
Having values is one thing, but the other component of Culture is the right people leadership. Use the values
to help people deliver upon the right behaviors, skills and experiences. Leaders must embody the Brand’s
DNA and live by the values. Employees will be watching the Leaders to ensure they are living up to the words
on the wall. Leaders need to believe that by investing in their people, the business results will come. Better
people produce better work and that drives better results. Talent management means hiring the right people
and providing the right training. Too many companies are skimping on training and development, which is
equivalent to cutting back on your R&D.
Every communication to employees, whether in a speech or memo, should touch upon the Brand Values, by
highlighting great examples of when employees have delivered upon a Brand Value. Leverage values, with
inspirational touch points and processes to inspire and challenge them on achieving greatness. The culture
will only change when everyone makes the decision to make the change.
Brand Leaders should look to Culture as an Asset that can make
your Brand Experience even more powerful.
The more loved the Brand, the More Valuable the Brand Visit the blog at beloved-brands.com

7. About Beloved Brands Inc.
I started Beloved Brands Inc. to help your brand realize its full potential value
by generating more love for your brand.
About Graham Robertson
I’m a marketer at heart, who loves everything about brands. My background
includes 20 years of CPG marketing at companies such as Johnson and
Johnson, Pfizer Consumer, General Mills and Coke. I’m the President of Beloved
Brands Inc. and can help you find the love for your brand. The reason why I
started Beloved Brands Inc. is to help brands realize their full potential value by
generating more love for the brand. I have a reputation as someone who can find
growth where others can’t, whether that’s on a turnaround, re-positioning, new
launch or a sustaining high growth. My promise to you is that I will get your brand
and your team in a better position for future growth. I only do two things: 1) Make
Brands Better or 2) Make Brand Leaders Better. To read more about Beloved
Brands Inc., visit http://beloved-brands.com/inc/ Feel free to add me on Linked In
at http://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamrobertson1 or on follow me on Twitter at
@GrayRobertson1
How we can make your Brand better through strategic planning
workshops:
• Strategic Brand Plan
• Brand Positioning
• Creative Briefs
• Brand Analysis
• Brand Research
• Advice on execution
• Prioritization of Activities
How we can make your People better through Brand Leadership training and coaching
• Writing a Brand Plan
• Better Strategic Thinking
• Developing a Brand Positioning
• Writing a Creative Briefs
• Deep Dive Brand Analysis
• Getting Better Execution
Beloved = Power = Growth = Profit
The more loved the Brand, the More Valuable the Brand Visit the blog at beloved-brands.com