In smaller organizations, sales and marketing are typically handled by one person, R&D is with another person and HR is still another person. However, silos expand exponentially as your organizational chart grows. Sales departments become flush with product managers. Marketing departments are packed with marketing managers and brand managers. R&D departments are brimming with the next Thomas Edision. HR departments are stocked with HR professionals who specialize in payroll, recruitment, training and development, or employee relation. Not to mention, all the people in the IT department, Purchasing department, Production or Service department, Maintenance department and so on. 

As a leader or member of the leadership team, just how does branding help you keep all these departments from becoming siloed in their own vision for the future and the way they choose to engage with your customers?

As defined by idgroup founder, Mona Amodeo, in her book Beyond Sizzle - The Next Evolution of Branding, a brand is defined as the socially constructed meaning people associate with the name of a business or product. However, branding is the process of managing the elements that construct the desired meaning of the brand. It is shaped, shared and lived by aligning the business’ visual and verbal communications with the experience people have with the brand. Branding unifies people around a common and consistent identity and narrative—giving businesses and organizations the ability to build and strengthen authenticity, trust and reputation.

Branding has the power to change your world and the world around us. It also has the power to deconstruct silos. At idgroup, we deploy a whole system branding approach to strengthen an organization's competitive position by facilitating and catalyzing branding initiatives that are inside out, not just outside in.

A majority of branding professionals focus exclusively on IMAGE or outside in. We focus on an organization’s brand ecosystem—VISION, CULTURE and IMAGE. We help leaders and leadership teams to align the thinking and actions across all departments and teams by engaging your people, even during the onboarding process. 

After we co-create and roll out your story, this inside out approach weakens silos and over time, these silos begin to vanish from the landscape like a mirage in the desert.

When the brand is locked in the marketing department, organizations miss a major opportunity to deliver experiences that bring customers, employees, partners, and investors together. From customer journeys to how people talk to behaviors that reflect your values, every interaction internally and externally is an opportunity to grow your brand.

Our Branding From The Core® process helps you close the gap between perception and performance, or in colloquial language—what you say and what you do. We address these strategic connections by solidifying and amplifying your core identity narrative, building a verifiable promise, crafting a compelling story and foundational communication assets that position your brand so it matters in the minds and hearts of your people and your customers. 

Fundamentally, we have found with the organization's people and stakeholders that “what they help to create, they will protect.” This increases performance because your people get it, after all they created it and now own it, instead of having it fed to them in a brand book, video or landing page that some brand consulting firm produced and said: “Here it is.”

Creating what is genuine and authentic to your organization is powerful, and most leaders agree, is the secret sauce.

If you or your CFO think branding is just an ad campaign and a marketing expense that is easy to reduce or cut from the budget, you might want to go back and read reason one and two again. These two reasons should be enough to get you to rethink and reimagine what branding can do and should be doing for your organization. 

Branding is a business strategy. One that generates revenues in the short-term and long-term. If you don’t agree, we’d love to hear your reasons for not investing in your business and your brand. History has shown that organizations that resist soft-term cost cutting in this area during tough periods perform significantly better in the marketplace when the economy heats back up.    

When branding is viewed as a marketing expense, it hinders organization's ability to cultivate cohesion, momentum and growth. Don’t take our word for it. Here is an article for Harvard Business Review that backs up this reason and expands on a couple of other reasons that could help your organization traverse hard times and come out the other side in a healthy position.