Brand Infrastructure in Non Profit Organisations; what supports successful brand building?

Brand Infrastructure in Non Profit Organisations; what supports successful brand building? Introduction There is an acceptance that organisations need to develop strong brands as part of their strategy (Kay, 2006) and an organisations success heavily depends on its brand s success. Ten years ago little scholarly research had been devoted to branding in the not for profit sector (Hankinson, 2001) but more recently interested in this field as part of marketing has grown rapidly (Bennett, Kerrigan and O Reilly, 2010). Brand management as a part of marketing is important in non profit organisations (NPOs)(Sargeant, 2009) and a successful brand requires effective management of brand architecture (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000). Particular factors that allow brands to be constructed, communicated and managed would logically include such variables as vision, internal support, leadership, available budgets and experience, and in this paper these factors are termed the brand infrastructure. However, whilst the brand infrastructure necessary to successfully build brands has received some attention in a wider context, only limited work considers anything other than commercial branding contexts (Chapleo, 2010). The particular purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine branding in non profit organisations and explore what is meant by brand infrastructure, the role it plays in successful brands and its relationship to the brand architecture. It is intended that through this work theory and practice of branding in NPOs will be better informed so that structures to support branding can be better managed. Brand infrastructure; internal success factors The concept of brand architecture is well discussed in the literature (Douglas, Craig, & Nijssen, 2001; Devlin, 2003; Laforet & Saunders, 2005, Uggla, 2005; Treiblmaier & Strebinger, 2008) as the overall structure that allows communication of brand positioning through a combination of brand values and brand personality (Upshaw, 1997). The components of the single or individual brand (as well as the management of the brand portfolio) must also must be considered in brand architecture. Harris and de Chernatony (2001) suggest that a sustainable competitive advantage can better be achieved through unique emotional elements than functional characteristics. These emotional values are not just communicated by advertising but also through employees interactions with different stakeholders (Harris & de Chernatony, 2001). Employees have to communicate the brand s promise across all contact points, whereas such behaviour can become a competitive advantage if they deeply believe in the brand s values (Vallaster & de Chernatony, 2005). In consumer goods branding, the key marketing tasks for developing a brand are positioning, product development and external communication (Kimpakorn & Tocquer, 2009). However, in the service sector, employees, information technology and operations as well as service culture also have an influence in service branding (Kimpakorn & Tocquer, 2009). Everybody in a firm can be seen as a service provider and should be encouraged to live a company s values and attitudes (Ghose, 2009). Brumann and Zeplin (2004) argue that the strength of a brand depends on the consistency of the customers brand experiences along all customer-brand touch-points determined by the brand s identity. Consequently, the brand s identity must be consistent with employee s values and behaviour (Harris & de Chernatony, 2001). Internal brand building is therefore crucial in developing a successful service brand (Vallaster & de Chernatony, 2005) and the importance of the brand infrastructure is evident. 1

Particular elements of the brand infrastructure are worthy of exploration through the extant literature: Organisational culture The culture of an organisation is important and must be comprehended by all employees, since it offers the frame for staff interactions and external representation of the company (Balmer & Greyser, 2006). Moreover the cultural context has an influence in knowledge creation and how staff implement brand values through social processes (Vallaster & de Chernatony, 2005). A company faces a challenge to introduce and realise its culture in a multinational environment, since other cultures interpret brand messages differently (Kay, 2006). Effective communication Effective communication is important on both a team and organisational level (Harris & de Chernatony, 2001). In order that all employees understand and live a brand s values and identity, good internal communication is very important to achieve a consistent understanding and to reduce confusion about brand positioning (Aurand, Gorchels & Bishop, 2005). Leadership It seems self evident that leadership is important in internal communication. A leader s task is to take on the brand s promises and translate them into action (Vallaster & de Chernatony, 2005). Additionally, in multicultural working environments, a leadership task is to generate shared understanding of brand values (Vallester & de Chernatony, 2005). Human resources In addition to marketers who define a brand and its promises and values, and leaders who have to communicate and translate these promises and interact with employees, human resources (HR) departments are also pivotal. HR is important since they may recruit people who buy the brand promise themselves in the first place (Aurand et al, 2005). Furthermore, training is important to ensure that all staff comprehend, live and communicate the brand promise (Harris & de Chernatony, 2001). It is evident from the literature that to communicate a successful brand outside the organisation requires a number of variables to be in place internally and the relationship between external brand and internal brand support and structures is critical. Previous work discusses these in varying degrees but little work explores specifics in the context of a non profit organisation, a sector where branding has rapidly advanced. This research aims to explore these issues and begin to fill that gap in literature. Methodology This exploratory work sought a deeper understanding of the internal components of branding in non profit organisations (Chisnall, 2001) and smaller samples were considered appropriate (Christy and Wood, 1999; De Chernatony et al, 1998). The particular questions explored in the interviews linked to factors necessary for successfully managing non profit organisation brands. The term Brand Infrastructure was therefore broken down into constituent elements to clarify among interviewees. Twenty interviews were conducted among Heads of Marketing for UK non profit organisations comprising charities, universities and miscellaneous public sector organisations, over a four month period in 2010-11. Respondents were allowed to offer their opinions on which internal factors and conditions underpinned a successful brand. Senior marketing and external relations personnel were selected as they represented experts with a breadth of experience who can draw on their specialist knowledge to define the fundamental characteristics of relevant matters (Tremblay, 2

1982; De Chernatony and Segal Horn, 2003) and these were selected by a random stratified sampling method. Semi-structured interviews were considered to be most suitable, as complex and ambiguous issues can be penetrated (Gummesson, 2005, p. 309) providing an illustration of the participants true feelings on an issue (Chisnall, 1992). This technique is reinforced by other branding studies such as Hankinson (2004). An interview guide was used to steer the discussion, but respondents were also invited to expand upon ideas and concepts as they wished. The average duration of each interview was seventeen minutes and interviews were recorded (Goodman, 1999) and transcribed. The analysis was informed by Miles and Huberman (1994) using coding that identifies any commonalities in responses, and the particular qualitative approach of Schilling (2006) in structuring the results. After initial content analysis, the results were checked by an independent research assistant as providing an accurate summary. (Flick, 2006). The anonymity requested by some participants made the attribution of direct quotes challenging. Nevertheless, a number of pertinent quotes were assigned by organisation category in an attempt to partly address this issue. Findings Conditions or factors that support brand building in NPOs The key factor suggested by interviewees as being a necessity was the support of senior management. Without this, it was argued, branding can too easily become all about the logo (university marketer) and there is the danger of branding in a vacuum (charity marketer). As well as support, however, understanding of branding and valuing branding was also thought important. It was argued that there may be confusion about what the brand is among most people (charity marketer) and most respondents mentioned some form of brand training or education to try and build what was termed buy in. It was conceded that this was sometimes easier said than done but nevertheless a consensus that it was necessary was evident. There were positive examples such as that from a newer university marketer who talked of continually feeding out snippets of information and presenting aspects of the brand to staff and that when the actual re-branding programme was launched it was consequently no problem to engender a reasonable level of support. It was suggested that this idea of brand buy in was also important among other stakeholder groups and effort should be made to inform and educate them. Other factors discussed as being important to brand building included an appropriate marketing structure in the organisation, good internal communications and a clear vision or mission. Relative importance of brand infrastructure variables to a NPO brand. Prior to the previous exploratory question, factors that are argued to be important to branding were identified from literature. These were offered to respondents and they were asked to rate these in terms of importance to brand management in an NPO on a four point scale. They were also given the opportunity to expand upon them. The mean score of factors (or variables) are summarised in Table 1. Table 1: Relative importance of brand infrastructure variables Support of leadership 3.91 Clear mission and vision 3.83 Employee buy in 3.75 Effective internal verbal communications 3.46 Organsiational culture 3.29 3

Effective internal written communications 3.13 Information technology systems 2.54 Operations 2.5 Marketing budgets 2.46 Whilst the sample is clearly too small to draw meaningful quantitative results, there are a number of interesting points suggested. Unsurprisingly given preceding discussion, leadership and a corresponding clear mission / vision were considered the most important factors. Perhaps the most interesting point, however, was the low importance placed by respondents on budgets; this might initially seem surprising as traditionally consumer brands have utilised sizeable marketing budgets. As one of the key insights in the research this point was therefore explored in greater depth employing the benefits of exploratory work. This revealed that NPO marketers consider that they have long had to work with limited budgets in comparison to many commercial counterparts but that they had learned to embrace this and employ branding in its fullest sense (NB Not simply visual identity). This, it was argued, had led NPO marketers to be creative and approach branding activity through a number of routes. Specifically suggested were branding through experience, reputation management, internal cultural branding and press and publicity. In summary substantial spend on marketing communications was not deemed as critical as it might be argued to be in commercial organisations. In the context of this question some other more predictable factors were offered, including the importance of medium / longer term consistency of approach and continuing support and real understanding from management (university marketer). The relationship between the external brand architecture and the internal factors discussed above (the brand infrastructure ) should be a symbiotic one (public sector marketer). It was suggested, however, that it is often easier to communicate the brand externally than it is internally; even though people seem to understand brand, or give the appearance of doing so, the trend to try to pull away and create sub brands is never far way in some NPOs. The greatest challenges to successful brand management in NPOs Respondents were asked to talk freely about this and some went into considerable depth, reflecting the number of challenges they foresaw. Continuing the theme from earlier, the importance of leadership was mentioned, as well as the challenge of creating real understanding of branding within the organisations. Suggested for public sector organisations in general was the perceived cynicism of staff that impedes community and cohesion when trying to build a brand (university marketer); this was termed the cultural issue of branding by one public sector marketer. Whilst many organisations had seemingly come to terms with brand building on limited budgets (and, it could be argued, innovated as a result), the lack of money was still identified by two charities as a challenge. It was also felt, particularly in the charity sector, that the sector has staff with strong internal motivations but that the external brands don t always fully communicate this. There was felt to be a great potential for brands in the charity sector in particular as people often had their charity that they identified with or was relevant to their lives. The key was argued to be tapping into and communicating this. Finally the budgeting systems were also identified as a challenge by a few respondents, with talk of locked down systems where parts of the organisations had 4

their own discrete budgets that led to inflexibility. This was thought to be particularly relevant to universities and public sector organisations. The changing pace of the external environment was argued to be a challenge by most respondents, with organisations increasingly having to adapt and react to market conditions at a faster pace than they have culturally been equipped to do. On a positive note, however, it was felt by some that this changing environment was forcing a cultural change internally which led to more competitive branding strategies in non profit organisations. Conclusions Many of the findings support the existing literature, such as leadership being considered the most important element of the brand infrastructure, but a number of conclusions that are noteworthy and worthy of highlighting are evident: Senior management who fully understand and embrace branding will generally lead to many other elements of the brand infrastructure being in place. There is evidence of NPOs increasingly employing senior managers from commercial backgrounds and therefore a corresponding increase in application of for-profit branding approaches was expected by participants. Despite this, understanding of branding by management and employees in general was still considered a significant challenge particular to the sector and it was suggested that real understanding demonstrated through ongoing actions that supported brand building rather than superficial lip service was sometimes lacking. Although there was a reasonably positive mood among respondents interviewed, the call to invest in proper structures to support branding was evident (this was more evident among public sector organisations than charities, however). It seemed that whilst there was a clear sense of the importance of branding and what needed to be done, the challenges were very evident and a degree of insecurity about the support to get the job done could be discerned. Arguably the greatest insight, however, was that respondents generally agreed that limited budgets, whilst a challenge, were not critical. It seemed that NPO marketers have embraced branding in its broadest sense and have found creative alternative branding approaches that are informed by but do not necessarily replicate for-profit approaches. Some examples of these were outlined in the findings, but the concepts of experiential branding and reputational branding were suggested to contribute to successful branding among non profits. Experiential branding is a growing field that may offer insights for the sector. Clearly this is something that would benefit from deeper investigation to inform both theory and best practice, and to propose a conceptual model of NPO branding strategy. Further Research Clearly this research is of an exploratory nature, and therefore a logical progression would be to consider the variables that constitute NPO brand infrastructure among a larger quantitative sample, with a view to establishing a model for practice where relative importance of variables is suggested. As stated, one of the particular conclusions to emerge from this work was that large marketing budgets are not necessarily perceived as critical to branding in NPOs. Deeper qualitative work to explore why this is so and alternative approaches being utilised may also be highly relevant for both theory and practice. 5

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