Brand building in high technology space

Branding of high technology corporations, products and services has come a long way. Although it has traditionally been the forte of the consumer products industry, in the last decade, high technology companies too have resorted to aggressive brand building, says Sudha Kumar. Branding of high technology corporations, products and services has come a long way. Although it has traditionally been the forte of the consumer products industry, in the last decade, high technology companies too have resorted to aggressive brand building. A survey on the most valuable brands, conducted last year by Interbrand, a leading brand consulting firm, shows that the technology sector created the maximum brand value last year. In fact, Microsoft was rated the second most valuable brand ($70.2 billion) after Coca-Cola ($72.5 billion). Advances in technology, especially the Internet, will give further impetus to the creation of high-technology global brands.

What's (in) a brand?

Let us start by defining what it is not. A brand is not just an icon, a slogan, or a mission statement. Neither is it a set of brochures or a catchy tag-line. Brand building comprises all these elements and more, but a brand itself stands for a promise of creating value that one makes to the stakeholders. And, if this promise is kept, time after time, the equity of the brand increases. This in turn creates stickiness or loyalty.

The value of a brand, therefore, is in its ability to create unassailable competitive advantage through enduring positive associations and perceptions created in the consumer's/customer's mind, in turn leading to loyalty to the product or service. The strongest brand identities are the easiest to recognise and the toughest to emulate. They command a presence in their categories and far beyond them. Coca Cola, Walt Disney, Nike and P&G are some of the strongest brands the world has come across.

Arriving at the brand position: One of the first steps in building the brand is to find out what promises your customers want you to keep (through research), then you figure out what promises you realistically can keep. Finally, you take a long careful look at your competition and decide which promise would give you the best competitive advantage. This process of arriving at a focussed, credible value proposition is the kernel of brand building activities.

Propagating the message: Once this position is decided, communicating this becomes central to every marketing activity, every action, every corporate decision, every customer interaction. Brand building programmes conceive, implement and integrate multi-pronged strategies to reach out to the company's various stakeholders, and shape their experiences to be positive.

Vehicles of communication are numerous - brochures, the corporate web site, seminars, and articles in the media are a few.

At Infosys, for example, there is a newsletter targeting customers and business partners, called Infocus. Most would be familiar with journals brought out by global consulting firms - these are excellent vehicles to propagate their thought leadership. Exclusive C-level seminars are another useful means to embark on focussed branding.

Cisco is a good example of a company that has implemented an integrated brand building programme. Having positioned itself as a transformation agent in the new economy, Cisco conveys this message through its website, seminars, CEO Chambers' talks and most importantly, the way in which they have assimilated the web (internet and intranet) into its way of doing business.

Persuading with creativity: Not only is it imperative to maintain consistency of content, but the look and feel that carries through all the marketing and business communication is also as important. Most would recognise the Nike swoosh even in our dreams, or recall the Mercedes logo instantaneously! That is why many companies have a pictorial identity to complement the name, as visual imagery aids recall and recognition.

CEO as brand ambassador

In addition to the above, a powerful way to build a company's brand (as distinct from sustaining the brand equity of an already well recognised brand) is by using the CEO as its brand ambassador.

Take any powerful brand today - we have Bill Gates and Microsoft, John Chambers and Cisco, Jack Welch and GE and Jeff Bezos and Amazon.

For young companies which are in the process of building a corporate brand, leveraging the CEO as a spokesperson and brand ambassador is quite effective. Chambers' and Gates' visits to India were a part of their strategies of demonstrating their commitment to the Indian market, which in turn would create a positive brand image for their companies in the minds of the Indian public. This is precisely the role played by Infosys Chairman, Mr. Narayana Murthy in architecting the Infosys brand.

Employees and brand building

Efforts by the marketing team as well as management are strongly reinforced through each and every business interaction and, of course, the actual commitments kept through delivery of products and services.

Last year, each of our 10 million customers came in contact with approximately 5 SAS employees, and this contact lasted about 15 seconds each. Thus , SAS is "created" in the minds of our customers 50 million times a year, 15 seconds a time. These 50 m "moments of truth" are the moments that ultimately decide whether SAS will succeed or fail.

- Jan Carlzon, CEO, Scandinavian Airlines, 1987, Moments of Truth.

In fact, to get employees to believe in the brand, and empowering each employee to communicate this belief in all their interactions with customers is probably the most effective and credible way to build a brand in the services industry. For, customer experiences reinforce or take away from the brand equity, and in this industry, people are the brand.

And hence, external campaigns should always be complemented by internal communication and brand awareness programmes. Interestingly, Accenture, then Andersen Consulting, won the globally acknowledged Dataquest Award for Services Marketing Innovations in 1999 for their highly successful internal brand building campaign.

An organisation could use a multi-pronged strategy for strengthening internal communication. Workshops, seminars, newsletters and portals are ways to spread the message internally.

Technology, specifically the Internet, can be leveraged to dramatically improve the effectiveness and reach of brand building programmes. The corporate website is a start- extranets, on-line targeted communication programmes and employee portals can be effective tools as well.

To sum up, I quote branding guru David Aaker-

"A brand is much like a "box" in someone's head. As information about the brand is received, through the media, seminars, the web, as well as through direct interactions with the company's people and its products and services, it gets stored away in this box labeled xxxx.

As time passes, little discrete information in the box maybe retrievable. But the person knows if the box is heavy or light. And, he or she also knows whether the box is stored in the positive or negative storage room."

Enduring services brands are built over time through relentless multi-pronged communication of consistent messages, backed by service delivery that matches or exceeds the promise.

And hence, brand building is not merely the responsibility of the marketing function; it's all-pervasive and a part of everyone's job description, from the receptionist to members of the board.

(The author is Associate Vice President, Corporate Marketing, Infosys)

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