"Branding is the Name of the Game"

By Sue Masaracchia-Roberts

When most people think of a brand they think of Starbucks, Kraft, TiVo or even famed search engine Google. All of these companies have done an excellent job of distinguishing themselves in their marketplaces and continuing to strengthen their brands over time.

MODERATOR

Clarke Caywood, Ph. D.
Associate Professor, Integrated Marketing Communications Northwestern University

PANELISTS

Susan Morris
VP, Communications and Public Policy
Delta Dental Plans Association

Carol McCarthy
President, McCarroll Marketing

Linda McGovern
Director of Brand Strategy and Marketing Communications
International Truck and Engine Corporation

PROGRAM SUMMARY

From left: Clarke Caywood, Carol McCarthy, Susan Morris (All photos by Ted Lacey)

Widely respected Northwestern University Associate Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications Clarke Caywood, PhD, along with Susan Morris of Delta Dental Plans Association and Carol McCarthy of McCarroll Marketing gave insights into the role that PR plays in branding, during the February Publicity Club of Chicago luncheon.

Clarke Caywood, PhD

Clarke Caywood is the founder and publisher of the Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications and, among his awards, has been named by PR Week as one of the most influential 100 PR people in the 20^th Century and as one of the top 10 outstanding educators in 2000.

He counts banning power point in class presentations among his most significant accomplishments. This fits with his passion for using stories to communicate.

"Branding is associated with advertising," said Caywood, "but it’s less about ads and more about touch points. Brand contact points are crucial."

Touch points, according to Caywood, included something as simple as answering the phone by the third ring. He also admonished companies that neglect internal branding to employees. It empowers them and gives them permission to play their role in the brand. The employee comes first to the company. This lets the employee represent the brand to the customer, which is the employee’s first priority.

Caywood added, "Brand is in the mind of the consumer. Stay aware and stay grounded!"

Susan Morris

Before joining Delta Dental Plans Association, Susan Morris served as the director of public relations and government affairs for the suburban Chicago Central DuPage Health System, as well as having worked at a variety of Chicago communications firms such as Bozell, Tassani Communications and McKinney Public Relations. Among her current duties, she now oversees the creation and direction of the association’s brand strategy and management, national advertising and public relations programs.

As the brand master for Delta, she works to re-center the brand and commodotize claims processing, along the lines of Blue Cross-Blue Shield. She must focus on benefits like service, quality and rapid processing to address a changing market and heated competition. Her biggest challenge is that many companies perceive Delta as three different regional companies rather than one national company.

"Sales people and customers know who we are and what we stand for," said Morris. "It is necessary to educate the board as to what the brand is, have speakers on hand to build an understanding of the brands and we need to teach them what the brand is -- that it’s not ads, but what you deliver to the customer."

According to Morris, brand follows business strategy, normally from a five-year strategic plan. To do this, she suggests developing a brand position nationally then taking the strategic plan and looking at the end-users in addition to the company. In addition to renaming itself to Delta Dental of Illinois to reflect its changes, she went over the brand platform: their ambition for everyone to receive good oral health care, their mandate for access to care, their promise to provide a means to oral health and their values – being an innovative partner, strategically aligned to enable access to care.

Prince Riley, Director of Client Development, Witherspoon Marketing Group, poses a pointed question to the panel.

In addition to obtaining top-level buy-in, she helped the company develop tools and training at the corporate level to enable everyone in the company to understand this platform. Nothing left the company for at least nine months, ensuring that everyone understood and lived the promise and serve as "brand ambassadors." Everything from graphic standards to forms became accessible via a "brand wizard" to unify the brand platform. Brand ambassadors were sent to the company’s other locations to train other employees on the brand; they had access to all the materials online so they could pick and choose what would work best for them, since, according to Morris, "what works in Wyoming wont necessarily work in Los Angeles." The brand wizard now includes sample brochures, letterheads and press releases, and can be accessed online by designated people and printers.

"Branding is the good news," said Morris. "The work is more complex. Be careful not to over promise or the result may be over demand or providing information to a competitor." She added that it is important to identify and measure the contact points, deciding from top to bottom what is most to least important. "Simulate being a consumer, then talk to consumers," she said. "Brand contact points are things that may not be accurate."

From a measurement perspective, Morris added that automated metric systems and "hits" can show the acceptance of the brand. Data analyzed includes press coverage, market penetration and other contact point measurements. "Look at the brand as an asset with value. The value of a brand can leverage customer, employee and provider satisfaction."

Carol McCarthy

A nurse with more than 28 years of experience in healthcare, Carol McCarthy has spent the past 17 years working with marketing strategy. Named Ernst & Young Illinois Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003, she founded McCaroll in 1989 to enable her to work with clients in order to build their businesses and strengthen their positions in the marketplace.

According to McCarthy, there is a cultural piece for employees and the best brands understand that. Focus, involving vision, culture and image is the key. She defined vision as the aspirations of top management; culture as what employees think, feel about and understand about the vision; and the image as marketing and public relations. Image also involves customers and competitors and their views of the brand. The most successful brands align all three elements.

McCarthy used as examples, Southwest Airways and Starbucks. "They get it right from the top management," she said. According to her, for Southwest Air it’s about market share. "For them, market share is all about people, efficiency and low cost. Employees ‘get’ what they have to do in order to be a market leader. For Starbuck’s, it’s all about people and about the culture. For FedEx, it’s getting the package to its destination on time."

Another example McCarthy used was that of Michigan’s Bronson Health Care’s enlightened management. With a staff of 3900 full- and part-time staff members, the health care system realized that their employees were critical brand assets. In 1995 with the goal of making them a national leader, a dramatic employee benefits program was launched that took into account the lifestyles of their nursing staff, the core of their health care delivery process. Employee children were offered scholarships, backup childcare was provided, and an employee concierge program was started to address ever day time challenges, such as picking up groceries or dry cleaning. A free health club membership was provided. . The changes were founded on putting the employees in the position of patients. The changes they made brought new life to their brand through their employees and Working Woman Magazine singled out the company as a best workplace two years in a row -- the only health care organization to be honored.

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(Index to articles about monthly luncheons)