Branding: Intranet Power

Let's explore the power of using the Intranet to further brand goals with internal audiences. Brand management groups at many companies have found the Intranet to be a powerful tool to accomplish the following on behalf of their brands:

•Communicate up-to-date brand identity standards and systems and provide powerful tools for applying those standards and systems in a variety of situations (Updates are immediate and universal. There is no need to print expensive new manuals or hope people update the existing manuals with the new pages.)
•Provide accessible decision logic for brand architecture (for example, to help people determine when a brand should stand alone, be a sub-brand or be endorsed by the parent brand)
•Educate employees on brand management principles
•Educate employees about brand goals and strategies
•Provide key brand talking points to sales people, customer service representatives and others in direct contact with outside audiences
•Reinforce the brand essence, promise and personality
•Recognize people who have gone out of their way to further brand goals
•Maintain constant contact and dialog with company employees on brand issues
•Keep people focused on achieving key brand goals
•Demonstrate best practices in reinforcing the brand identity in an interactive environment

Brand building Intranet sites frequently include the following:

•Prominently featured brand essence, promise and personality
•Brand identity standards and systems with templates that can be applied digitally or printed out
•Brand plan including brand objectives and strategies
•Brand equity goals and performance against those goals
•Other brand research
•Key selling points for the brand
•Specific copy to include in consumer, trade and other external audience communication
•Recent brand press releases
•Recent brand advertising (including video clips of recent television ads)
•Brand glossary
•Frequently asked questions
•Recognition of people who have gone out of their way to further brand goals
•Proper use of brand identity standards (including brand colors, tonality, visual style and voice) throughout the Intranet site
•Screensavers that feature the brand logo
•Bulletin board for raising and addressing brand issues
•Digital brand management newsletters conveying important brand information and featuring examples of successful brand building actions

They sometimes include the following:

•Brand management education
•Importance of brand management
•An overview of the brand management process
•How to create brand insistence
•Calendar of upcoming brand events
•Video clips of brand management speakers
•Video clips of employees and customers talking about what the brand means to them (reinforcing the brand essence, promise and personality)
•Corporate executives reinforcing the importance of delivering the brand promise (through video clips or quotes)

Your organization's Internet and Intranet sites are two places where you can incorporate animation and sound into your brand's identity, providing it with a richer multi-sensory texture. It is critical that brand identity standards and systems are consistently applied to these two vehicles and that the brand management perspective is factored into the design of these sites. More and more companies that have "piecemealed" their Intranet sites by division or department are realizing the importance of a consistent, seamless look and feel that is driven by the brand and its identity.

Just as the Internet is revolutionizing how we conduct business, so too the Intranet is revolutionizing how we can further brand goals through internal audiences.