crafting a compelling brand narrative sharpening your competitive edge neville billimoria, svp/chief...
TRANSCRIPT
Crafting a Compelling Brand Narrative
Sharpening Your Competitive Edge
Neville Billimoria, SVP/Chief Advocacy Officer Mission Fed
“Ask for Money, Get Advice. Ask for Advice, Get Money”
Introductions
Pair up with someone at your table and quickly (5 minutes total) interview them.
Find out their name, organization, their role, one cause they are passionate about
Be prepared to introduce them to the people at your table
(GO!)
Introduction Cont.
What we just did was…A.Invest & build some social capital in one
another and create some connections and cardio-graphics
All’s Well that BEGINS WellSetting Intentions…
Craft your brand narrativeEffectively engage, connect and resonate
to amplify your results Polish up your brand promise with
purpose
Leveraging Your Social Capital
What parts of your story resonate with whom and why- How to leverage values alignment in your strategic partnering and with key stakeholders-Why getting your branding and messaging right could be the difference that makes a difference
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
~Albert Einstein
On Brand
“THE ONLY THING OF REAL IMPORTANCE
THAT LEADERS DO IS TO CREATE AND MANAGE CULTURE.”
—EDGAR SCHEIN, PROF.MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
Brand as
What is “Brand”?
Shortcut toShortcut toDecision-makingDecision-making
First, Debunking Some MythsFirst, Debunking Some Myths
Branding is External (Marketing)
Branding begins Internally (Culture)
Brand is about facts.
Brand is all about feelings.
Strategy is about planning.
Effective strategy is about “design thinking.”
Design Stages
Leadership is based on a power position.
Leadership is a personal choice and is empowered
by the group.
Evolving from an Information Ego-System…
…to a Knowledge Eco-System
Hierarchical structures effectively reflect how work gets done in organizations.
21st Century work reflects nothing of the sort.
Formal and Informal Systems
Formal Systems Informal Systems
Plans and reports are how work gets done.
Work and change happens through the interactions
of individuals.
“Train the Trainer” is the most effective means of
scaling learning.
Identifying and engaging key social influencers can
be more effective.
Success is only measured by results.
Don’t underestimate the power of intangibles.
Just because you can’t count it, doesn’t mean it is not important…
“Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.” --Albert Einstein, the father of modern physics
“An organization’s intangible assets"
represent more than 75% of its strategic value” -- Kaplan and Norton the duo that developed the Balanced Scorecard and the Godfathers of the most widely adopted performance management framework in use today
Strategy is the
most important factor
in your success.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
~Peter Drucker
Winning the Story Wars
On storytelling
The Greatest Story Ever Told… YOURS!
A great storyA great storytellerThe right audienceBrand resonance- Values alignment
History of Storytelling- The Universal Communications Tool
Our Cultural DNA
Oral Tradition- Survival of the Fittest StoryBroadcast Era- Survival of the RichestDigitoral Era- Back to Survival of the Fittest
with a decidedly different inflection
Spend Shift
Thrift based society (post depression)Conspicuous ConsumptionConscious Consumption and Conscious
Capitalism (post 2008) Generators of Value not just Extractors of Value A Values Revolution
What is Your Story?
Beyond Inadequacy Marketing (Freud’s nephew Bernays) Create Anxiety Introduce your Brand as a Solution
Leave the broken marketing language of the past behind!
Toward Empowerment Marketing (Maslow) Wholeness, Perfection, Justice, Richness, Simplicity,
Beauty, Truth, Uniqueness, Playfulness
The Hero’s Journey
The Hero (is not You its your audience)The Mentor (that is your brand)The Brand Gift (makes the hero’s journey
possible)
“And the moral of the story is…” (your brand values)
Vision, Mission & ValuesBe Authentic- Live your Story!
5 Ways to Optimize Brand Storytelling
Make it matter: Why should your audience care?
Incorporate story elements in your brand narrative: How does your story empower your hero?
Humanize it: Data and numbers have little meaning without context. Articulate how your brand is making a tangible difference in the lives of people
Get Real: Does your story successfully pass the test for being authentic and genuine?
Make it visual: Telling your story with video or an info-graphic can make a big difference.
The value of values
“What good is sight if you have no vision” – Helen
Keller
Values Alignment
“Vision” reflection and refraction on value stream that seems to hold true for any pairing of people, teams, organizations or cultures as we strive to help others see better…
Use as an illuminating optic for who we partner with as well as share this nuanced work with those we aspire to help
“Who you know defines WHAT you know” – Dr. Alan
Daly
Values Clarity
Are your individuals, team and organization self-aware of their own value system?
Your Mission/Reason for Being This values clarity becomes the first lens
for decision making about who to hire, invest
time with, collaborate with, take risks with, etc.
Values Alignment
+ If a shared value system or at least shared core beliefs then partnership, collective intelligence, social capital optimization are all a matter of investing in the right structure and process to unearth that latent potential.
- If there is values mal-alignment the long term prognosis for sustainable growth and shared success is limited, no matter what contract or covenant is created to “protect interests”
Value Proposition
Ideally, the sum of the parts of the pairing, creates new and synergistic opportunities that would not exist if the individual entities approached this by themselves.
Identifying the core competency of each actor’s unique offering (gift) and combining these creates opportunities that could not exist for the market or to fill the particular need
The Value of Values
This values work (intangible as it might seem) is Mission Critical
Wrongly understood, it is the cause of both personal and business partnership failures (divorce, dissolution, disgust)
Rightly applied it leads to radical collaboration creating something new and wondrous (delight, dynamite)!
Brand
Membership Employees
Understanding the Employee Culture Belief System
1. Mission Fed sets the core cultural values by which we live and work.
2. Our employees rely on those values to guide behavior, achieve member service excellence, and create The Mission Fed experience.
3. Our members feel and feed off of those values. Each employee interaction facilitates their Mission Fed experience.
The experience as a
whole creates a human connection with the Mission Fed culture, and loyalty to the Mission Fed brand.
Your Mission if you choose to accept it…
DAC
B
Applying This Success Formula
DT x RC = TIDesign Thinking xRadical Collaboration = Transformative Impact
American Marketing Association Cause Conference 2014, @ USD
Never believe Never believe thatthata few caring a few caring peoplepeoplecan’t change the can’t change the world.world.For, indeed, For, indeed, that’s all who that’s all who ever have.ever have.~Margaret Mead ~Margaret Mead
From Our Family to Yours…Happy Holidays!
Love, Neville