Brand ambassadors

The brand comes alive through brand ambassadors. So far, so good. Each and every staff member in one’s own company is a ambassador for one’s own brand. This is why a staff member’s appearance and behavior at customer touchpoints forms and characterizes the brand. And staff members have a significant influence on what the customer experiences (customer experience). Therefore, the more consistently staff members act in personal or written contact or on the phone, in sales and consultation meetings, and at exhibitions or in service and support, the better the brand image becomes anchored in the minds of the customers. So that the brand values can be experienced through the brand ambassadors, of course, concrete, relevant, and company-specific values are necessary. What is also necessary are leaders that live out these brand values during daily work during both internal and external social interactions.

Without a brand foundation with clear brand positioning, an authentic brand personality, and a succinct brand story, a lot of the essentials are missing. This is true at least in modern and internationally active B2B companies that have long grown out of the days when the spirit of the founder from days past was still drifting through the hallways and which have grown their own sphere of activity through acquisitions or takeovers. Whereas in earlier times the charismatic personality of the entrepreneur had an effect on the behavior of employees and staff members, today, a translation into consistent brand values is needed. These values have to be known to all staff members in the company. In addition, a committed readiness of all staff at all locations and in all units of the company to maintain and live out these brand values needs to exist.

In strongly service-oriented companies, the importance of the individual staff member as a brand ambassador is much more strongly anchored than in a specialized small or mid-sized, globally active manufacturer that still strongly concentrates on the ability and quality of products. From our point of view, however, the importance of branding is growing precisely for such companies. The more customer touchpoints or interactions there are, the more the impact of an employee or staff member on the brand increases. Leadership which is lived out creates fertile ground for fostering strong brand ambassadors. At the same time, knowledge and understanding need to be built up through various communication and training measures extending over the long term. At the end, it is important for success that all employees at all hierarchical levels of the company and all fields of activity at all locations of the company are involved in the brand ambassador journey.

This is where internal branding increases in importance. It is often necessary to make staff aware of the importance of the brand during a sensitization phase. And it has to be clear which relevance a strong brand identity has for the respective business unit. Only then can measures and tools, based on the brand foundation and brand positioning, be developed and integrated. This is a long process of change which has to be supported by management and be internalized and lived out in the sense of the top-down principle. This is the journey that we accompany you on with our brand consultancy.