During my working life the pace of change has been gathering speed. What started as operational and process improvements became the new dimension of constant technological leaps. It’s got to the point where the only constant in life is change.
The challenges facing businesses now are some of the most demanding I’ve encountered. How to move forward when challenged by changing markets? Some are almost paralysed at the thought of making the wrong move. They use all the tools at their disposal and analyse data and market insights and search for a haven of predictability. Bell also uses these tools to measure the past and the present as part of the marketing mix, but the future is hard to predict. All too often events change the rules.
So what do we do? ‘Nothing’ is not an option.
When I started in business I was lucky to receive some wise words from my accountant. He said, ‘To be successful, you don’t have to be 100% better than your competition, just 1% better at a 100 different things’. Those words have remained with me and drive our ethos at Bell. This belief rings true for creating a powerful brand too – but only if it starts from the very top.
The real power for transformation is when corporate branding is understood and passionately driven by the business executive. This is the perfect foundation for a successful brand and should be viewed as the platform to tiny and continuous marginal gains that permeate your entire business.
At Bell we consider this brand equation: promise = experience. In other words we are looking for true, unique and defendable statements that we turn into propositions. We identify our client’s brand promises and these have to be matched by the evolving experience of their brand.
Vision and branding done properly is all about the bottom line and can be the perfect catalyst for business transformation; it can help you recruit the right people and find new markets and make better margins.
Starting from the top of an organisation, branding should be viewed as a series of small improvements that add clarity and renewed energy and so contribute to simply making a business better.
Vision; direction; personality; ethos; vocabulary; tone of voice, tactics, and image – individually, these topics and many other branding ‘marginal gains’ make quite modest improvements to a business. But they’re your brand’s ‘DNA’ – when you add them together and drive them from the top, it’s these little gains that make a very big difference.
We think it’s so important that we’re willing to offer a free brand workshop* (yes, you did read FREE) to senior business teams that share our belief – and who want to identify those small gains that will make a big difference. Do contact us if you think your business or organisation will benefit, and we’ll see if we can help.
Alan Bell
Chairman