4 Tips for Achieving Brand Consensus

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Getting your organization’s buy-in on a new brand position and story seems like a no-brainer. Who doesn’t want that? So the biq question is HOW do you make that happen? How do you herd the various departmental cats and get them aligned? Here are 4 tips based on best practices to arrive at consensus as you develop your new brand message:

1. Consensus starts with customers

We typically think about consensus as something that happens within your company – and that’s absolutely true, but it’s not the whole picture. Consensus also means that your customers’ needs and values, and their perception of your brand and the market, must be aligned with your team’s vision and the story you tell. A brand story that resonates with the customer but doesn’t align with what the company believes in, is a recipe for a long and troubled relationship. A brand story that makes sense for the company, but is out of alignment with what customers wants is just as misguided.

“A brand story that resonates with the customer but doesn’t align with what the company believes in, is a recipe for a long and troubled relationship. A brand story that makes sense for the company, but is out of alignment with what customers wants is just as misguided..”

For example, one of our clients in the integration space had been marketing their software as a way to drive more efficiency for developers and the product team. Essentially, they could do more with less. And while that was technically correct, it wasn’t driving prospects to invest in a new solution. We helped the client discover a message that hit the bullseye with prospects. The real value was allowing the product development team to stay focused on the high value, future-visioning product innovations that drove impact versus using scarce resources on integrating with other solutions. Hearing what customers said made it easier for the client to pivot to a new, more customer-centric message

Consensus needs to be representational.

How many people does it take to achieve actionable consensus? This is like the proverbial “How long is a piece of string?” one of my business school professors loved to ask. The answer varies by company.

The first consideration is size. If you’re a 5 person startup everyone should be involved – that’s an easy one. If you’re 1000 employees you have to be much more selective. We don’t recommend going over 50 participants, but the key is to have a manageable but passionate group that participates.
Make sure all departments are represented. Finance, HR, Sales, Operations, Product. They all have to have at least 1-2 seats at the table. If you are a multinational company, you should represent each region at a minimum. This way, every department not only has a say and input, but they become evangelists for the new story AFTER it’s completed. It gets spread to every corner of the organization, and has a much better chance of being adopted.
All C-level team members MUST participate. They have to be completely aware of and involved in the decision about the brand, especially its purpose. Leadership must be able to communicate why the company exists, and why it matters – at a minimum. This purpose will be so foundational to everything the company does that without their input and buy-in, the brand initiative’s strength and staying power will be threatened.

In larger companies, we like having the C-level team PLUS their direct reports participating. This ensures that the consensus arrived at has legitimacy and is positioned to succeed. This is the most important work your team will do together. The leaders must be all in.

“In larger companies, we like having the C-level team PLUS their direct reports participating. This ensures that the consensus arrived at has legitimacy and is positioned to succeed.”

Strong moderation builds consensus.

Someone has to usher the brand development process along to ensure active participation. You should have a clear methodology for getting everyone’s frank input. A questionnaire to a handful of random people asking their opinions on brand questions is not going to drive consensus. There has to be an opportunity for people to interact around the key principles and values of your brand. This goes full analog: good old fashioned conversations.

That’s why moderation is so important. Moderators ensure all voices are heard. No one gets shouted down by the loudest voice in the room. The CEO’s opinion matters, but so does the Director of HR’s and the VP of Product’s. Good ideas come from every part of the organization, and they need to be drawn out by experienced moderators who can tell the CEO and Head of Sales to stop talking (in the nicest of ways) so we can hear other voices. The moderator must be Switzerland, and it’s often best they come from outside the organization, so they have no skin in the game for one specific outcome over another.

Consensus must become culture.

You can arrive at consensus about your brand’s purpose and story and still see it whither on the vine. It’s not about one campaign that gets launched. That brand purpose consensus that you’ve fought so hard to reach needs to become ingrained in every aspect of the company. It is how companies arrive at meaningful corporate culture. The CEO must talk about it when they speak at events and to the media. Product must look at its roadmap to determine whether it’s prioritizing the brand purpose. Finance must fund the projects that align with purpose – and scrutinize initiatives that aren’t. And when Finance has been involved in the consensus, they can recognise the ‘stuff’ that isn’t adding to it. Purpose, position and story must be part of employee onboarding and it must be incorporated into performance evaluations and compensation. Marketing must make sure all campaigns flow from the purpose.

We know that’s a lot of ‘musts,’ but, it’s time to walk the walk and nurture the consensus-driven brand you’ve birthed into existence. When that consensus becomes the company’s mantra, when it’s something that everyone sees and hears, when it’s used as a key criterion for making important decisions, your consensus brand becomes consensus culture. We don’t know of any better way to re-energize or redefine a company’s culture than around the spirited and shared discussions about why it exists, and how you can make anybody care.

Tell us about your consensus experience. How did you arrive at consensus about your brand? Or maybe you encountered a company that never found consensus. Share it in the comments!