Most leaders understand the business imperative of answering the questions, “Who are you?” and “Why should I care?” These questions serve as the foundation for a clear brand identity and permeate sales and marketing messages. Leaders who keep their organizations relevant to the marketplace also understand the need to revisit these questions when shifts occur in consumer expectations and strategic priorities. However, it can be more difficult for leaders to sense their brand’s influence over their performance, which impacts every corner of their organization. Simply put—when you walk the talk, you strengthen your brand integrity.
 

What is Brand Integrity?

So what is brand integrity, exactly? Every organization has a gap between what they do and what they say. The smaller the gap, the easier it is for organizations to earn a strong reputation and grow. Brand integrity is the degree to which people trust you—their perception—based on your organization's words and actions—your performance. At idgroup, we fundamentally believe brand integrity also includes the degree to which your words and actions align with your identity.  

Organizations can close the gap between performance and perception by reinforcing their brand, which includes making—and keeping—verifiable promises to their customers, employees, stakeholders and community. The resulting perceptions of these groups can strengthen or weaken brand integrity. 

Here’s how that breaks down:

Why Does Brand Integrity Matter?

Brand integrity matters because it provides a strategic framework for defending and strengthening your organization’s reputation. Leaders have a critical responsibility to protect the organization’s reputation, which can erode over time or worse, fall to ruin with a single major misstep. Brand integrity directly impacts your ability to attract, retain and engage customers, employees and investors. It is also a predictor of your organization’s ability to succeed in a competitive marketplace. The better leaders understand their organization’s identity—who they are, what they stand for, and why anyone should care—the better they can grow (avoiding pitfalls along the way). 
 

Signs You Need to Improve Your Brand Integrity

When an organization is facing lowered brand integrity, the effects can be felt at every level. Diminished brand integrity will:

• Neglect Strategic Shifts: If your business is pivoting, entering new markets, or targeting new customers, and your brand fails to communicate these changes, it can create confusion and alienate your target audience. For instance, if a tech company moving into sustainable solutions retains a brand identity associated with outdated practices, it may undermine its credibility and market position.

• Undermine Competitive Positioning: If your brand fails to differentiate you from competitors or fails to highlight your unique value proposition, it can lead to your brand becoming lost in the market noise, making it difficult for customers to perceive your distinct advantages.

• Hinder Growth: A brand that is not well-executed or aligned with your growth objectives can actually repel potential customers, limit market penetration, and stifle business expansion.  For instance, a luxury brand that rebrands with a focus on affordability may alienate its high-net-worth customer base.

• Disrupt Internal Alignment: If your brand is misaligned with your internal culture and values, it can lead to employee disengagement, confusion and a lack of brand advocacy. This misalignment can create a disconnect between the brand's external image and the internal reality, leading to a lack of authenticity and a negative impact on employee morale and productivity.

• Impede Financial Performance: A poorly performing brand can negatively impact your bottom line by eroding customer loyalty, and ultimately diminishing revenue streams. It can create a perception of instability or lack of direction, leading to customer churn and reduced profitability.
   

How Do You Measure Brand Integrity?

Brands are notoriously complex to measure and leaders often struggle to identify the right KPIs. Typically, “brand” KPIs fall short, primarily looking at external factors, like measures of sentiment, net promoter scores and marketing/sales performance. While these metrics play a role, leaders need to access the strength and clarity of their brand in three critical areas:

• Vision: Top management’s aspirations for the company.

• Culture: The organization’s values, behaviors and attitudes. The way employees all through the ranks feel about the company.

• Image: The outside world’s overall impression of the company. This includes all stakeholders—customers, shareholders, the media andgeneral public.

Organizations experience gaps between each of these components through every stage of their growth cycle.

• Vision-Culture Gap: The disconnect between a company's aspirations and its internal culture, where employees may not be aligned with or able to deliver on the company's vision.

• Vision-Image Gap: The discrepancy between a company's desired future and how it is perceived by the outside world, often due to ineffective communication or a vision that is out of touch with market needs.

• Image-Culture Gap: The misalignment between a company's external image and its internal reality, often caused by a failure to deliver on promises and values, leading to a perceived lack of authenticity.

Find out which gaps are holding you back

How Leaders Can Strengthen Their Brand Integrity

A common misconception about branding is that it is the marketing department’s responsibility. However, when orchestrated and aligned properly, leaders can scale their organization’s brand impact by taking action on the following: 
 

Protect and Build the Organization’s Reputation

Paramount to an organization’s success is its reputation. Leaders need to keep their finger on the pulse, creating feedback loops throughout every level of the organization, internally and externally. Don’t let the excuse, “I can’t fix it, if I don’t know about it” limit your effectiveness. As a leader, the scope of your awareness will only benefit your ability to make strategic decisions. 

While it’s important to address issues and stay ahead of any missteps, don’t let negativity consume you. Be intentional about uncovering strengths and wins, as these point you towards authentic expressions and refinements of your unique value proposition and culture. Leaders  can link performance improvement to communications initiatives to strengthen their organization’s brand integrity.

Align Your Business Strategy and Brand Strategy

If brand integrity is about aligning what you say and what you do, leaders need to evolve their brand strategies to meet changes in the business. Whether that's repositioning the company, merging, launching a new product or service, breaking into new markets, or attracting a new customer segment, the brand needs to be fully integrated with business decisions. A useful tool for doing so is an identity map, which provides clarity about how the organization defines itself and wants to be seen by others, answering the questions that are central to its healthy growth and development: Who are we, where are we going, what impact do we want to make, and how do we want to present ourselves to the world?

Engage Stakeholders

Generating brand buy-in is only earned by the continuous engagement of an organization’s stakeholders. While it is common—and recommended—to research the customer perspective, leaders often lean heavily on employee surveys, which often fall short on delivering a multi-dimensional internal perspective of your brand. Leaders who bring their employees, partners, and stakeholders together in facilitated dialogues uncover the authentic story that lives within the organization. When that story is co-create, it can serve as a powerful tool to unite and energize people both within and outside the organization.

Clarify Vision

Leaders can clarify their vision by fostering a strong alignment between the company's aspirations and its internal culture. This involves ensuring that employees understand and embrace the company's vision, and are equipped to contribute to its realization. Simultaneously, leaders need to effectively communicate the company's desired future to the external world. This includes articulating the vision in a clear and compelling manner, and demonstrating how it aligns with market needs and expectations. Doing so, leaders can create a shared sense of purpose and direction, both within the organization and in the marketplace. 

Understand Marketplace Expectations

To uncover and understand marketplace expectations, leaders can actively engage with their target audience and stay informed about industry trends and competitor activities. This involves conducting market research, gathering customer feedback, and monitoring social media conversations to gain insights into customer needs, preferences and perceptions. By understanding the evolving marketplace expectations, leaders can proactively adapt their brand strategies and offerings to meet these expectations, thereby enhancing their brand integrity and strengthening their competitive position in the market. 

Ensure Positive Customer Experiences

Organizations need to think critically about the promises they are making to customers—and their ability to keep them consistently. Positive customer experiences are fostered by a customer-centric culture within the organization. This involves setting clear expectations for employees, providing them with the necessary resources and training, and empowering them to make decisions that prioritize customer satisfaction. By creating a positive and supportive internal environment, leaders can enable their employees to deliver exceptional service, which in turn will strengthen customer perceptions, build trust, and drive brand loyalty. 

Brand Strategies for Leaders

In summary, to compete and win in the evolving marketplace, leaders must shape, share and live a compelling story that answers the questions, "Who are you?" and "Why should I care?" To build brand integrity, leaders must develop strategies to align their vision, culture and image. Brand identity is cultivated by engaging every level of the organization and delivering consistent messaging that resonates with stakeholders, internally and externally.  While staying true to their core identity, leaders should also ensure that their organization meets the expectations of customers, employees and investors. This necessitates a strategic approach that extends beyond the marketing department and permeates every corner of the organization. Ultimately, aligning perception and performance is crucial for building brand integrity and the reputation over time. Leaders who pull this strategic lever have the power to grow, evolve and strengthen their organization for the long term.

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