Brand Alignment

You know your brand is doing well when you have perfect brand alignment. What do I mean by brand alignment? I mean the organization's brand aligns with the perceptions held by consumers about the organization.  Brand alignment ensures that people accurately know and understand the organization's brand purpose, which sets appropriate consumer expectations.

To begin achieving brand alignment, the brand must be communicated internally in order for it to be accurately executed externally. Every member of the organization must understand the brand purpose and know how they are trying to achieve that purpose everyday. According to a Harvard Business Review, "95% of employees on average don't know or understand their company's strategy". The organization needs to foster a culture where everyone rallies around a central cause - the brand purpose - so they can live it everyday! Doing this ensures that everyone in the organization believes in the brand and accurately represents it to the external world through messaging and actions!

By having internal brand alignment, every member of the organization is living the brand by creating products, services & experiences that emulate the brand purpose. These products, services & experiences become the external communication of the brand. So, if these accurately represent the brand, the customer's interaction with the organization will begin to create brand perceptions that are aligned with the organization's personality & purpose!

If the brand experience is memorable and positive for the user, they will not only be more likely to buy that brand again, as I mentioned in my last blog post, but they will begin to share their brand experience with friends and family, which perpetuates consistent brand perceptions. So, in essence, to achieve brand alignment it starts with the organization living the brand followed by employees crafting experiences, which create the brand consumers know. These experiences result in a positive impact on consumers so they will continue to preach the brand's purpose to other consumers!

I think Wally Olins says it best in his book Wally Olins: The Brand Handbook:

Thorough brand management means consistent, coherent behavior everywhere and with all corporate contact ... this means working out & then putting into practice behavior patters that genuinely conform to the claims you make.

One organization that, I feel, has created amazing brand alignment is Cirque du Soleil!! Its purpose is to invoke the imagination, provoke the senses and evoke the emotions of people around the world. It aims to accomplish its purpose through high-quality artistic entertainment experiences. If you have ever had the pleasure of seeing a Cirque du Soleil performance, you would believe in its purpose as much as the performers themselves! They are truly inspiring people around the world by continually presenting about 19 shows simultaneously around the world pushing the physical and artistic limits every time! Additionally, the organization doesn't believe in market research, as it would stifle the creativity and innovation they truly believe in. I mean, how would marketing research help create awe and inspiration if you had to test which color people best respond to! 

I think the best way to show how Cirque du Soleil's inspiring performances and additional actions have created brand alignment, is to see what people's perceptions of the brand are! If you ever want to see the perceptions of any given brand, check out www.brandtags.net. Below are the words and/or phrases that come to peoples' minds when they think of Cirque du Soleil. One observation I noticed, relative to other brands listed on the site, was that people mostly associated the brand to emotions, rather than just a product, which corresponds accurately to the brand, as it's goal is to evoke emotions!! I look forward to seeing my next Cirque du Soleil performance to become inspired once agian!