Falling in Love with your Brand
If you don’t love your brand, chances are your customers aren’t going to either. Here’s how to align your entire company with your brand strategy to grow your business.

In today’s highly competitive environment, brand building is not an optional business practice. It is essential irrespective of industry-specific dynamics. A company’s brand can and should guide critical business decisions, as well as determine appropriate employee behaviours and messaging. Adopting this brand-driven approach helps foster relevance amongst the brand’s desired target audience that will ultimately translate into increased trust, profitability and competitive advantage.
While many companies recognise the value of a powerful brand, they often overlook the critical role employees play in shaping relationships with customers. Without diminishing the role and importance of external communications such as advertising, direct mail, social media engagements and the like, these are complementary functions. Organisations should fully capitalise on the knowledge and (hopefully) enthusiasm that resides within, or they may just be setting themselves up for brand and business challenges ranging from disenfranchised customers to loss of shareholder value.
Several years ago, I recall a colleague raising a discussion on mission, vision, culture and ethos during a townhall as PEMANDU Associates took its first steps to becoming a privately-owned business entity. I could understand and appreciate the question being raised at that time because the company was starting on a new business trajectory. Many of the employees wanted to visualise and understand the direction and approach. Many wanted something written on paper. And formalised. The CEO responded by saying “My answer is 3 words … BIG … FAST … RESULTS”.
To many at that time, these 3 words were taken as a tagline to promote what the consulting company does and deliver. But essentially, these 3 words encapsulate and embody all that PEMANDU Associates was before and is today. It is a promise, a methodology, a product, a service approach, an intense desire to deliver, and a transformation manifesto. Not many brands are able to communicate that in 3 simple words.
So, the only thing that was needed to be done was to distil and crystallise this into every individual employee as a work attitude; a culture if you will, so that they can begin to embody this, manifest an operational attitude and aptitude to deliver. Thus, as representatives of the company, their actions begin to strengthen the brand itself.
The reasons to align employees around your brand can
- provide a tangible reason for employees to believe in the company, which keeps them motivated and energised.
- allow each employee to see how he or she fits into the grand scheme of delivering the brand promise to its customers and the effect of these efforts on business goals.
- develop a level of pride tied to fulfilling the brand’s promise.
- facilitate recruiting as well as retention of employees.
Thereby making the brand the central focus of the organisation. It also clarifies for any employee what is “on-brand” and what is “off-brand.”
It becomes easier to make the right strategic decisions when problem solving. The whole organisation will now have a brand lens in place to make astute and strategic brand-based decisions.
It should be emphasised that building a brand-based culture is not about creating short-term buzz.
Rather, it is about developing a genuine and ongoing commitment to the organisation’s brand. To create a brand-centric environment, you must ensure that employees are living the brand consistently on a daily basis, across functional areas, divisional boundaries, and geographic markets.
Creating such an environment is not an easy task, but it can be done. And brand assimilation is the key.
Assimilate internally before you captivate externally.

Brand assimilation is designed to ensure that all employees understand and embrace your brand to be able to truly bring it to life inside and outside your organisation. Just like any relationship, you have to know yourself and believe in yourself before anyone else will. A structured brand assimilation programme will ensure that employees understand the meaning of your brand and how it can translate into observable, actionable behaviour. Some companies call the programme an orientation and some like PEMANDU Associates or COMMUNICATE, onboarding whenever new employees join the fold. When people inside your organisation deal with customers, prospects, or other stakeholders, they should think, speak, and behave in ways that create the kind of customer experience and lasting impact that your brand aspires to deliver. With your employees aligned behind your brand, you maximise the strength of the brand and can develop a vibrant brand-based culture. On-brand employee behaviour will result in more meaningful customer relationships that ultimately translate to favourable business results.
Turn conviction into action
