THE INTRODUCTION OF A BRANDING APPROACH

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THE INTRODUCTION OF A BRANDING APPROACH

- A better understanding of -An instrument for help with

the change task

when an essence branding approach is being introduced

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B. voor den Dag

The introduction of a branding approach - A better understanding of

-An instrument for help with

the change task when an essence branding approach is being introduced

Essence Contemporary Branding

Boulevard de Grancy 47, Lausanne

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Student Number: 1137239 Supervisor: Drs. E. Gnirrep Co-supervisor: Drs. R. Julien

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Preface

This research was conducted for Essence Contemporary Design in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Essence is a branding company founded in 1996.

The Essence assignment was accepted in January 2004. The following months were dedicated to providing Essence with the information the company asked for: insight in the change task Essence leaves its clients with when providing a branding advise and the development of an instrument that Essence can use when advising its clients.

In going about accomplishing these tasks in a satisfying way a lot of help and expertise from different sources was needed.

Internally, this research was supervised by Hervé Ziga and Manélik Sfez. I would like to thank them for their support, their knowledge and even more than this: their dedication. I will miss our conversations.

The supervision from the side of the University of Groningen was in hands of Mr. Julien and Mr.

Gnirrep, who I would like to thank for their support and feedback, both during the research process and when the final research report was in their hands. Mr. Julien and Mr. Gnirrep: your constructive approach was very useful and supporting.

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Executive Summary

This research deals with the change management task the consultancy firm Essence leaves it’s clients with after handing them a branding advise. Essence realises it does know a lot about how to run a branding program, but not about how to go through the change process that automatically follows.

For this reason, this research has provided insight in this change task and an instrument with which Essence can assist its clients. These two results have been gained through answering the two research questions:

What do the change task and change process that are caused by an Essence branding approach look like?

And

In what way can Essence assist its clients with the change task of introducing a branding approach?

The most important aspect when going about answering these two questions is to answer the question how to handle (the different aspects of) change.

Answering these questions has been done in two steps. The first step conisted of performing interviews with companies that have already undergone a change process that resembles the process that will take place in organizations of Essence clients. These in-depth interviews took place with four change leaders in just as many international organizations.

In the interviews a lot of insights, perceptions and lessons are shared. Some of the remarks that were made come back in all the interviews. Other remarks are rather contradictory or one of a kind. A comparison of these different types of outcomes with literature on the subject lead to useful conclusions for the final instrument.

A last part of every interview concerned the ‘how’ of introducing of a new logo and corporate communications.

In the change processes within the four companies a clear chronology can be discovered.

Besides to that a step-to-step approach was used in all these companies. These two patterns, together with the different subjects that came up in the interviews were studied in the literature.

The information from practice, combined with the evidence or reflection in the literature on the subject lead to the following conclusions on the change process caused by adopting a branding approach and on how to approach this change task step by step:

Step 1. Assess the readiness for change

This research identified this step as useful in branding related change management tasks. It was never before used by other authors.

“The best way to manage change effectively is first to get the lay of the land”. An assessment tool is added.

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Step 2. Create a sense of Urgency

The more urgent the change is in the eyes of the employees, the more they are willing to participate. High complacency therefore is an important change-blocker. A tool on how to create a sense of urgency is added.

Step 3. Create a change team

A change team with sufficient position power, credibility, expertise and leadership skills should be formed. This team should initiate the concrete changes, members function as change leaders.

Step 4. Create a vision

An imaginable, desirable and feasible vision should be created by the change team. This vision can be of concrete motivational value and can help making clear which concrete aspects have to be changed.

Step 5. Announcement

This step is also unique in the research field. The announcement has been found to be important in many respects. It can be used to stress urgency and communicate the vision (see the next step). Besides that it can be a good ritual to separate from the past. The announcement should be very well prepared, since it can influence peoples opinions strongly.

Step 6. Communicate the vision

Change leaders tend to underestimate the importance of communicating the vision. Every means should be used to do this. Face-to-face conversations, meetings, the announcement, company newsletters, the website and so on; continuously.

Step 7. Make concrete changes and keep things going

Empower any way you can. You should face people who block the change.The company should actively generate short term wins and communicate them. On lower levels more and more managers and employees should be recruited as change leader. Continuously communicating about the change process is important, both progress and problems should be communicated.

The change of the logo and corporate communications

One person should be coordinating the introduction of the logo and corporate communications.

This person should investigate where the logo is present and make a plan on how and when the logo’s on the many different places should be replaced. The time span in which this replacement should take place depends on many factors. These are depicted below:

Costs Should public be made familiar with the new logo?

The extent to which the logo is changed Central or decentral introduction

Amount of time for preparation The resemblance of the old and the new brand The number of materials containing the logo

Further conclusions:

¾ What the change process looks like depends to large extent on the thoroughness of the change; which aspects do change and to what extent do they do so? The research gives insight in the presence and influence of contingency factors.

¾ The marketing department and the departments dealing with external parties should know all about branding. Internal departments should have basic information on branding.

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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Introduction

In this chapter you will find an introduction to the research. This will get you acquainted in brief with essence and the subjects of branding and change management, that are the focus of this research. This acquaintance provides the foreknowledge needed for the full understanding of the background and the problem statement of the research that are also introduced in this chapter.

Furthermore this chapter will provide you with the business value and academical value of the research and the outline of this report. In the end of the chapter a visual representation of these points is added, so that the background and problem are very clear in the eyes of the reader.

1.2 Essence contemporary branding

Essence contemporary branding (hereafter: essence) was founded in 1996. In the first years of its existence the focus of the company was on 'corporate design'. This corporate design consisted of the design on client order of logotypes, but also the design of corporate documents, such as brochures or invitations. The designers at essence gradually developed views on the effects of design on the perception of brands by customers. They believed a brand would be more successful if it is very recognizable for customers in between many other brands. In order to achieve this brand recognition, essence tried to make distinctive designs which they believed would be most valuable when used consistently, with little change over time. By this, the first traits of what later became essence's branding approach became visible. It was realized that organizational design could benefit from organizational knowledge. At essence a period of thinking, speaking and reading about managing a brand, and in particular about branding came by. In 2003 branding was given a formal position next to the organizational design, with the hiring of a branding expert and the foundation of the department of 'brand advisory'. With the signing of this expert, essence found its ideas on branding formalized in a proper methodology.

This has been the start of a new proposition to clients, the branding proposition.

1.3 Branding

Essence describes branding as: 'Finding back the original essence of the company and trying to empower it again and make it a powerful creativity booster and growth driver.’

Essence tries to make its clients meet again with their roots and help them understand how unique they are: 'It is not about looking so and so to be appreciated, it is really about being what you are to be trusted. Then and only then you will have a true identity and your brand will be able to elicit a steady long term following from the people who share a community of values, mentality and philosophy.'¹

The word branding is used in many books, meaning many different things. The essence branding approach is mainly based on the literature by Al Ries. Therefore it is useful to state what he means by the word branding.

1 Essence, internal memo, 2003

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Ries stresses that the creation of a brand that is clearly present in the mind of the customer is the single most important thing a company has to do. He calls this the principle of "singularity", which means as much as the one key association customers have when thinking of a brand.² He defines a brand as an association of ideas anchored in the mind of the consumer³ Ries introduces 22 'laws of branding' that should elicit the principle of singularity. The definition of branding, therefore is: anchoring an association of ideas in the mind of the consumer by the use of specific laws.

The laws and the rationale behind them will be extensively discussed in the following chapter, at this point the most important laws will be introduced, to create a better understanding of the term branding, as used by Ries.

Every brand should make efforts to be associated with a key expression⁴. This can only be done when a brand is very specialised⁵. This specialisation does not need to be a specialisation in one product, but mainly in a congruent product offering, for instance Volvo that is associated with the key expression of safety, they specialised in manufacturing safe cars, while offering different products. The laws of branding state that the more a brand diversifies, the more it is weakened⁶, because the ideas associated with the brand will become more loosely anchored.

The brand should also be as much globalised as possible⁷ in order to expose all customers around the world to the same association of ideas.

Ries states furthermore that it is important to become leader in a market, which very often will turn out to be a niche market, because a 'top of mind' brand is very recognizable for the client.

Since the limited capacity of the human mind and the overexposure to communication outings does not easily allow numbers two and even less numbers 8 in a market to anchor key ideas in the mind of the customer.

There are many other laws that help the company by the task of distinguish 'the cow of their company of all the other cows'⁸ in the herd. Ries introduces distinctive naming, distinctive and suitable colour schemes and a law concerning the design and use of the brand logo.

Two laws must at any time be remembered, when using the others. These are the laws of credibility and evolution.

The credibility law deals with the statement by essence that is already quoted above. Branding is not only about positioning the product in the mind of the prospect, it is not an image issue. ‘It is not about looking so and so to be appreciated, it is really about being what you are to be trusted'. In short, the company key expression must be credible.

A fundamental idea about the mind of the customer results in the law of evolution. This fundamental idea is that the association of ideas will be weakened by company messages not

2 Ries, A., 2000, p. 203

3 Ries, A.,.2000, p 204

4 Ries, A., 2000, p 55

5 Ries, A., 2000, p 29

6 Ries, A., 2000, p 11

7 Ries, A., 2000, p.177

8 Ries, A, 200, p. 8

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reflecting these key ideas. A change of these association of ideas is very hard to accomplish and, if it can not be avoided, should only be attempted through slow evolution.

1.4 The Essence branding proposition

In this part the branding proposition, as being made by essence since 2003 will be shown. It will make clear what happens before the start of a branding process and it shows the activities and outputs in this branding proposition. Besides to that, this part will introduce the methodology as being used by essence.

Before explaining the branding program, as run by Essence, a basic premise of essence's way looking at the client's organization (Hereafter: CO) should be introduced. Essence distinguishes four different levels in every organisation. The first level is the legal level, the second level is the corporate level, the third level is the brand level and all products can be found on the fourth level. These levels will come back in the rest of this report. The main stage, of course, is taken by the brand level. When it is not made clear in any section on what level this section focuses, it is the brand level that is used.

1.4.1 The start of the process

The first contact between Essence and the CO, normally takes place through a telephone call made by essence. An appointment is being made to let essence present its methodology. At this stage it is often seen that client's don not have any idea about the possible importance of strong brands and the possibilities of branding.

During a follow-up call an appointment is being made to discuss a concrete offering. At this point, the client has a better developed picture of what he wants essence to do for him and what services essence provides. In short it comes down to the following basic thought: We believe your vision on branding can create advantages for us, we also would like to strengthen our brand.

In the period following thereafter the goals of the CO are being discussed. 'Strengthening our brand' is already identified as the all-encompassing goal. The concrete goals of the CO, however, may, among many others, involve the following aspects:

♦ The development of a strong and unifying concept for the company

♦ Keep strengths of the company and reinforce them

♦ Emphasising the essence of the brand

♦ Choosing the words, developing image and corporate communications

♦ Develop the brand to a reflex brand

♦ The development of a corporate architecture that facilitates the other goals.

1.4.2 The branding program

At this stadium Essence start to run a branding program, the branding proposition is built up in different phases⁹. The program is portrayed in fig. 1 on the next page.

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Phase 1: Audit and evaluation

Phase 2: Brand Strategy

Phase 3: Information design

Phase 4: Interaction design

Phase 5: Environmental design

Phase 6: Launch of the brand

=Process = Output T= time T Fig. 1: The Branding Proposition¹⁰

10 Essence, proposition d’intervention Desk research for knowledge of the

CO

Corporate values Interviews to reveal identity, values and

ambitions

Screening 21, consolidation and evaluation of desk research and interviews.

Argumentation for all recommendations and their implication

Brand architecture

Elemental identity of the brands Brand values

Preliminary recommendations

Brand architectur

e

Corporate values

Brand values Mission and vision

corporate and brands UBC for

each brand Logo, signature, colour code,

image universe and graphic universe

Corporate publications

Brand and product brochures

PR documents Corp., brand and product announcement

Affiches and posters

Internet site Intranet site Extranet sites Dynamic sales

presentations

Buildings and signs Reception and rooms Booths for fairs and expositions

Brand manual

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Essence uses its own branding methodology. Screening 21 is the tool to consolidate and evaluate the results of the brand review and the key interviews (see app. 1, The screening 21 factors). Screening 21 shows a number of parameters that should be taken into account when developing the brand strategy (in phase 2). Besides that it provides the argumentation for all recommendations by essence and their long term implications. The 20 immutable laws of branding by Al Ries were the basis for this tool.

In the figure, the terms elemental identity and UBC come for the footlight. The elemental identity consists of the modelling of every brand in essence's Unique Brand Concept (a visual model of the brand). Besides to that the elemental identity contains the visual and textual representations of the brand: A logo (new or retouched), a signature, a colour code, an image universe and a graphic universe.

1.5 Background

As has been shown, the process of branding up till now does not go any further than handing the different branding solutions and advises.

In conversations with the presidents of the present CO's it was often mentioned by them that handing these solutions is not enough. According to one of them it should be realised that after handing the solutions, the largest efforts and the major part of resources attributed to implementing are yet to come. According to him 'essence does not have any clue of what changes are being asked from the CO and the impact of these changes.'¹¹ Besides that it was stated that essence does underestimate the difficulties organizations face in making major changes.

Essence now realizes that these remarks are true. Literature stresses the difficulty of changing organizations. The resources (time, money and effort) needed for organizational change are without a doubt higher than those needed for producing the branding outputs. Essence also realizes that it has virtually no knowledge of this subject. Besides to these remarks, it might be the case that the solutions as handed by essence may provide a specific change task, that can’t be learned from ‘standard’ change management handbooks.

Essence’s consultants have appeared to be rather idealistic. What they want is that the world (or at least the CO’s) will be better off with branding. They believe that a better introduction of a branding approach by means of a well-formulated change management approach will increase probability of success.

Another important consideration is that many CO’s do not seem to have an idea of what the introduction of a branding approach is about. As Hervé Ziga (the essence director) states it:

“Many CO’s think that we will leave them with some advises on their brand strategy and give them a new logo, even though we tell them so, they do not realize which enormous changes will take place when a branding approach is implemented the way we believe it should. [...] If we can show what kind of change process the introduction of a branding approach asks for, it will help us making them aware what kind of thorough intervention we are talking about.”¹²

11 Interview with Michael Watts, BTG, 8 april 2004.

12 Interview with Hervé Ziga, 18 February 2004.

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For all these different reasons, essence wants to be able to offer the CO support in their change efforts. It is believed that insight in the change task and a concrete "instrument for change" can provide this support.

Besides these reasons, essence does see the commercial impact an insight in branding change tasks and an “instrument for change” can have. The thesis therefore is seen as a business development exercition. The insight and the instrument will become a new product to offer present and future CO’s.

A lot of questions already evoke at this point. Essence is interested in what a change process looks like, if there is a chronology in change processes, what issues have to be dealt with when performing a change task and, more than all; how they should be dealt with. These will be useful questions when going about providing essence with insight in change management.

1.6 Research methodology

Now the background of this research has been defined, the research methodology that is based on this background will be discussed. First the problem definition will be given, after which the research objective that has to be accomplished and the research question that has to be answered will be shown.

1.6.1 Problem definition:

At this moment, there is no insight in the change task that is being left to the CO after essence's branding solutions have been provided. This insight is highly valued for many reasons. The basic reason is that essence wants to really help its clients with building a stronger brand, having insight in how to introduce a branding philosophy might make the chance of a success in the CO higher. The second reason is the high failure rate in organizational change efforts. Apparently change management isn’t that easy and needs special attention. A third reason is that a change management process might ask more of the CO’s resources than the branding program costs.

Essence thought it to be odd not knowing enough of something that important for the CO. A fourth reason, a reason for this research in particular instead of just buying a book on change management is that the change task CO's are being left with after the Essence solutions are being handed can be of a specific nature, so that a handbook on change management might not provide essence with the right insight and practical advise.

Essence does not only want to have insight in the change task in CO's to be better able to help them. They would also like to have an instrument that can be added to the present methodology that gives a guideline for helping CO's with their change task.

1.6.2 Research objectives and questions

Research objective part 1:

"To provide essence with insight in the change task that is caused by their branding approach and with insight in the practical application of a change process. This insight should consist of the causes and circumstances of the change task and a description of the change process and the way in which ways the different issues that will come up should be dealt with."

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Research question:

What do the do the change task and change process that are caused by an essence branding approach look like?

1. What does the chronological path look like?

2. Which issues have to be dealt with?

3. How hard are these issues to deal with?

4. How should these issues be approached?

5. What are possible experiences with this approach?

6. In what way do the concrete circumstances influence the change task?

Research objective part 2:

“To develop a practical guideline to make essence able to help CO's with their change efforts and to let CO's benefit from the insights gained in part 1 of the research.”

Research question:

In what way can essence assist its clients with the change task of introducing a branding approach?

1. What kind of instrument(s) can Essence use to assist its clients in this task?

2. What does this instrument look like?

1.7 Visual representation

The above could win clarity being portrayed in a visual representation that explains how the research questions have come into existence. This visual representation can be found back on the next page.

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Fig. 2: Visual representation

Essence CO

Entrusts Essence

to run a branding program.

Interviews Information

Discussion B P

R R A O N G D R I A N M G

Recom mendati ons

?

The Introduction of

Branding

?

Timr

?

The Introduction

of Branding

?

The Introduction of Branding

?

1. We want branding to succeed, more

knowledge of the change process might enable this.

2. Change efforts often fail, we should therefore have an instrument to help CO’s with it.

3. Much more resources are going to be used on the red block than on the branding solutions. We should know more about something that important.

4. We can buy a book on change management, but branding might cause specific change task.

5. Change management advise could be a new

product to offer.

1. Essence doesn’t know anything about change

management, who can help us with it? They should!

2. Managing a change is very difficult to do.

Essence should at least understand that when giving us advises.

Research question one:

What do the do the change task and change process that are caused by an essence branding approach look like?

Research question two:

In what way can essence assist its clients with the change task of introducing a branding approach?

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1.8 Business relevance

The business relevance of this thesis can be found on two levels, both the consulting firm as its client can benefit from these research. These two levels can be found back in the group of firms this research is aiming at and at groups that were not included in the research.

1.8.1 Essence

Essence will benefit from this research in different ways.

Overall: Essence will benefit by gaining the wanted insight in how to introduce change in CO's.

Besides that, the insight and the instrument will make chances higher for CO's to go through a successful shift towards branding thinking. This is the first benefit, but this benefit can be good for essence in several other ways.

At first, a successful transformation is intrinsically rewarding. The efforts that were made and the money that was received had a clear result.

Besides that, a satisfied CO can be a powerful reference when searching new clients. A client that did not succeed in introducing branding, however, can worsen essence's reputation.

A third, clear cut advantage is the fact that essence can offer change management guidance as an extra stage of the branding program. Since every stage is paid for by the CO, Essence can directly profit from the instrument.

1.8.2 CO's

Organizational change is hard to accomplish. Since CO's gain insight in how to facilitate the change process and which pitfalls they should avoid, they have higher chances for succeeding.

A successful change can make the CO's ready for reaping the possible benefits of branding, while a shattered change progress can leave the organization worse off in different ways. About this subject, Kotter (1997 stated: "Making […] errors common to transformation efforts can have serious consequences. In slowing down the new initiatives, creating unnecessary resistance, frustrating employees endlessly, and sometimes completely stifling needed change, any of these errors could cause an organization to fail to offer the products or services people want at prices they can afford. Budgets are then squeezed, people are laid off, and those who remain are put under great stress. The impact on families and communities can be devastating. " ¹³

1.8.3 Consulting firms and firms that go through changes that are alike

Essence and CO's can benefit from the instrument. The same goes for other consultancy firms and other firms that face a change task that is similar to the task described in this research.

Since essence wants to spread the word of branding, it also wants to spread the results of this research, so that anyone willing to benefit from it can do so. They both should look carefully if the context-specific items also apply to their situation. Besides that, they can always benefit from the pitfalls and instruments that can be of value in any change task.

13 Kotter (1996), p. 15-16.

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1.9 Scientific relevance

Change management literature is often made up of a content part and a process part. In this research, the majority of the content is already known. The content of change management tasks in this context are the branding solutions that are provided by essence. This research is the first research that combines this particular content (branding) with tailor-made processual guidelines for change management.

The research shows how to translate both practical experiences and literature on how to organise a change task to a concrete framework for organisational change when a branding approach is being introduced.

1.10 Outline of the report

In order to best answer the problem statement, this research report is structured as follows:

Chapter 2 will contain further exploration of the subject branding, both in general and in the specific way it is used by Essence. The research method will be outlined in chapter 3. The results of the interviews that have been performed to create insight in the change task will be presented in chapter 4. Chapter 5 will contain a exploration of the literature on the subjects that have come up in chapter 4. Chapter 6 will contain the conclusions of this research and will at the same time form the change management instrument.

A figure can show the structure of this research at a glance:

Chapter 1: Introduction to the research.

Chapter 2: Explanation of branding.

Chapter 3: Methodology

- Essence performs branding programs - To introduce branding, a change

process is needed.

- Essence doesn’t have enough knowledge of this change processes and looks for:

- Insight in the change task it leaves clients with

- An instrument to be able to help clients during their change efforts.

Chapter 4: Interview results

Chapter 5: Comparison of results with literature

- In-depth interviews with experienced specialists are expected to give the rich information needed for insight.

- Interviews will be performed in companies that made a branding-like change, because essence clients can’t yet be asked.

- Interview results and comparison of the results with change management literature are a sound basis for conclusions and the conception of an instrument, because observations in either two can be reinforced or rejected.

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Chapter 2 Branding

The subject of branding, that has been briefly introduced in chapter 1, will now be dealt with a bit more extensively. The theoretical base that is provided here is selected on two grounds. The first is that the literature should be helpful to give a good overview of both fields, but the most important criterion on what literature to include and what not to include is the fact that the literature mentioned here will come back in the rest of the research. The literature on change management will be revisited in chapter 5.

2.1 Branding

In the context of this research, as said, Al Ries is the most important author on the subject of branding, since his methods form the basis of the Essence branding methods. There are many authors that have provided useful additional thoughts on branding, but introducing them would be outside the scope of this research, since their influence on the Essence methodology is much smaller.

2.1.1 Ries

Since branding is an ambiguous word and since it is not very regularly used term in academics, better understanding of the subject might be found in its historical roots.

Back in 1982 Al Ries and Jack Trout published the book 'Positioning'. The word positioning is much more often used in academics and the two authors give the following definition:

"Positioning is how you differentiate your brand in the minds of your customers and prospects' ¹⁴

The basic idea of positioning is the usage of an oversimplified message: In an overcommunicated society the enormous amount of information cannot be totally processed by a person. Therefore the only defence is an oversimplified mind, which means as much as; either not storing information at all or store only the core of a message. The response to this, according to Ries and Trout, is: using an oversimplified message. Only these messages will get a position in the mind of the customers.

To achieve this positioning a company should be the first in a certain niche to 'own' a certain word. This can only be done when the brand is focussed on a certain niche, a line extension to another product or niche almost always weakens the position of the company, according tho the authors. Next to owning a word and a strong focus, Ries and Trout state that a brand should have a distinctive name that means something, abbreviations should therefore not be used.

Branding is clearly based on positioning, since Ries uses all the above ideas for branding.

However, he goes one step further. He does not focus on positioning a certain brand, he states laws for the creation of a brand. The customer perception stays the most important premise.

Branding, however, shows how to use this customer perception to build a brand.

Ries has not forgotten his own law of the oversimplified message. His most important laws, shortly reproduced below, do appear to be rather simplistic. This doesn’t necessarily make them less useful however.

14 Ries, A. and Trout, J., 2001, preface

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1 The law of expansion

A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus. Many companies, however, try to take advantage of their brand through line extensions. They should not do this, since the principle of singularity is 'violated'. Ries & Ries: "Marketers constantly run branding programs that are in conflict with how people want to perceive their brands. Customers want brands that are narrow in scope and are distinguishable by a single word, the shorter the better." (p. 13)

2 The law of contraction

A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus, since the 'key idea' is more strongly anchored in the mind of the customer.

3 The law of the word

A brand should strive to 'own' a word in the mind of the consumer - "If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning a word in the prospect's mind. A word that nobody else owns." (p.39) Examples of brands that own a word are: Xerox that owns the word copier, Mercedes that owns prestige and Volvo that owns safety.

4 The law of credentials

Customers often say that they choose a product because it has the highest quality. Since quality can't be measured, the authors state that successful brands achieve their success because of their authenticity, not because of their quality. The best claim to authenticity is being the leading product or service in your own category. If you are the leading brand, customers are far more willing to buy your brand; ‘because the brand is the leading seller, it must be good’ is what they think. Another advantage of showing leadership is that leaders often stay leaders for longer times. A number 2 (Pepsi, Adidas) always has a lot of problems in becoming the number one (these positions are being held by Coca Cola and Nike respectively).

5 The law of quality

A brand must offer a high quality product, that's important, but it's not the most important task.

This is because real quality of products of services is hard to measure. Do you really think a Rolex is better in telling the time than a Timex?

6 The law of the name

In the long run, the name of the brand can make the difference. Xerox, for instance, is distinctive and short. This makes it much easier to anchor it in the mind of the customer and create an association with copiers.

7 The law of extensions

The strong anchorage and associations of a brand can be easily deteriorated by using the brand for many different products.

8 The law of the company

The brand level should be distinguished from the corporate level. Confusion can arise when these names are the same. Since brands are in the mind of the customers, when talking about the company (with the same name as the brand), the company is seen as a brand.

9 The law of subbrands

The word sub brands is synonymous for what is often called 'brand endorsement' in academic literature. Ries and Ries suggest not to use sub brands, because it blurs the picture of the brand.

Holiday Inn uses the brand 'Holiday Inn Royal Crown' for the high end of the market and Holiday

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Inn Express for the lower end. The image of the higher end brand is easily diluted, the association and anchorage are weakened.

10 The law of siblings

When there is a new brand to be introduced, for instance for a new target group, there is alway an urge to make this brand fit in with the already existing brands, for instance by giving it a logo or colour scheme that is alike. This urge is logical, since it seems very orderly to have a portfolio of brands that clearly belong together. Since branding is about being distinct, about creating anchorage and associations, every new brand should behave in line with this goal. They should not be alike and thereby weaken the own associations and those of the other brands. Sibling means as much as having several brands in your portfolio that appear to be, and to a certain extent are competitors.

11 The law of colour

The colour used for a brand should be as much different as possible than the colour it's major competitor uses, again for reasons of distinction. Besides that, if possible, the colour should fit the product. A renewable energy label therefore is ideally green, a dynamic brand is red and blue is best used when the solidity of a company is shown.

12 The law of borders

The product should be te same everywhere in the world, a brand should not look at borders.

Anchorage and associations are difficult to attain when the same brand looks different in many different countries, not to speak about different values shown in different countries.

13 The law of consistency

To be best able to anchor a brand in the mind of the customers and create associations, corporate communication should be very consistent over time. The creation and anchorage of associations takes a lot of time, therefore branding is a proces of decades instead of years.

14 The law of change

Changing the key idea of the brand is virtually impossible. To turn the key idea of rolls royce in 'race car' and that of Philips in 'producer of mobile telephones' is unthought of. Small changes might be achieved, but only very slowly and not too often, as has been explained in law 13.

15 The law of singularity

As stated in chapter 1, Ries and Ries stress that the creation of a brand that is clearly present in the mind of the customer is the single most important thing a company has to do. This brand should elicit associations and anchor them. The brand should be the only brand with these typical associations. Ries and Ries call this the law of "singularity".

As stated, Ries & Ries oversimplify reality, their laws are stated very strict. These laws, however, are the guidelines for Essence branding solutions.

As will be shown below, the laws of expansion, contraction, extensions and subbrand are applied less rigidly, although they are still seen as very important.

Essence, furthermore, does not apply every law to every CO. The law of the name for instance, states that initials are not distinct enough to be used as a law. Essence, however, does not always propose a name change.

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2.2.1 Typical branding advises

Now, what do these laws and principles of branding essentially lead to? What kind of advises does essence provide? The answers to these questions are important, since they can give a concrete picture of what branding means at essence. In order to give this picture, a list of typical branding advises is depicted in this paragraph. This list will be of importance in a later stadium of the research, because it is used when it is being defined which traits makes a a change

management process a ‘branding change management process’.

The following examples of branding advises are derived from practice and from discussions with the branding experts of essence.

A Brand name changes

B The creation of a singular brand for every distinctive market C The decision to enter a new market with a new brand D The division of existing brands into two new brands

E The key idea of a brand asks for a different communication (stressing this key idea) F The dissolvement of a brand

G The focus on certain activities under 1 brand, dissolvement of others

H Shift towards a category where leadership can be claimed (not too far from the old category)

I Efforts to more strongly attach (a possibly alternated) key idea to the brand

Both the theory on branding and the list of typical branding advises will be used in the next chapters, where the subject of change management will take the main stage.

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Chapter 3 The research methodology

In this chapter I will discuss the methodology used for this research. At first I will discuss the research strategy and the research design. In the third paragraph data collection methods will be explained. The interviews will be discussed in paragraph 3.4. Paragraph 3.5 will explain the choices that have been made concerning the instrument. In paragraph 3.6 all procedures concerning the interviews are discussed.

3.1 Research strategy

The research has an exploratory nature. Exploratory studies are a valuable means of finding out 'what is happening; to seek new insights; to ask questions and to assess phenomena in a new light'.¹⁵

3.2 Research design

The research will use qualitative methods for data collection. This qualitative information is needed for two reasons.

To find an answer to the first research question, that deals with gaining insight in the process of change management, it is clear that a deep understanding of the subject is necessary. This deep understanding can only be provided by qualitative information. The rich information that is received in this phase can lead to a lot of information to be used for the practical guideline the research question asks for.

3.3 Data collection methods

According to Saunders et. al. There are three principal ways of conducting exploratory research:¹⁶

-A search of the literature

-Talking to experts in the subject -Conducting focus group interviews

The first two ways of research are also used in the multi-method approach, they are the main items of the methods that are discussed below.

Interviews

Interviews with managers that have experience with change management will take place. As will be explained later on, the experience they have must be derived from a change task that has similiraties with the change task Essence provides their CO's with. These will be in-depth interviews, since this type of interview provides the necessary depth and allows managers easily to go into subjects they find of importance. The interviews consist of a number of questions that

15 Robson (1993) in Saunders et. al. (2000), p. 97.

16 Saunders et. al. (2002), p. 97.

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were posed to all interviewees. These questions were perceived to be best able to provide an answer to a part of the research. Besides that, asking the same set of questions allows for comparison of results.

The data collection method of performing interviews was perceived to be the best for the following reasons:

The information wanted for this research must come from practice. There is no literature yet on change management processes caused by a branding approach. This forces us to look at cases. There are still very many ways to look at cases. A case study would not give enough possibilities to draw conclusions that can be generalized. Sending questionnaires would be difficult for two reasons. There are more concerns if the information given is true and there is a problem because of the exploratory nature of the research. What do you want to put in a questionnaire if you want to know as much as you can about the subject?

Another important rationale is the fact that Essence is dealing with future change leaders. Who can provide them with more knowledge than their ‘colleagues’ that already had an experience with a comparable change task? These former and present change leaders were chosen to perform interviews with.

This choice automatically incorporates a disadvantage. How do you know you get reliable information if you speak to only one person that is at a high level in the organization? Preferrably you must find persons to confirm the information. This was too much in the scope of this research. The disadvantage of the interviews should be accepted, since the advantages are bigger. The disadvantage (reliability issues), can be dealt with of course. How this is done will be shown in this chapter.

Literature

A multi-method approach was chosen for different reasons. At first this approach enables triangulation to take place. "Triangulation refers to the use of different data collection methods within one study in order to ensure that the data are telling what you think they are telling you"¹⁷. This process can make credibility of research findings higher.

The second method, therefore, is a literature study that should compare findings from the interviews with findings in the literature. In this way, well-funded recommendations can be made, since they have been derived from both practice and literature.

3.4 The interviews

The way in which the data collection method of interviews is applied needs some more explanation. In this part, therefore, participants (and how they were selected), the instrument and procedures (under which validity and reliability issues) are addressed.

3.4.1. Participants

No essence client has ever introduced a branding approach before. To learn of experiences with change management it is therefore necessary to speak to non-clients.

An alternative could be to have interviews with organisations that have introduced measures that have been advised upon by an essence-like consultancy firm. A search for consultancy firms

17 Saunders, M. et. al. (2000), p. 99

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with an approach that resembles essence's did not lead to the identification of them. The Swiss chamber of commerce does provide a list of consultancy firms specialized in ‘brand management’. Their websites showed a different approach to consulting than essence’s, since their approaches were only partly based on ‘building a brand’, let alone the fact that the branding laws used at essence can’t be found back.

The third possibility, therefore, has been used. Participants in the research should be companies that have introduced changes that have features in common with the changes essence asks for (see chapter 2.2 Typical branding advises).

The sampling method used is therefore "purposive sampling". "Purposive or judgemental sampling enables you to use your judgement to select cases that will best enable to answer research question(s) and to meet your objectives"¹⁸

In order to be able to identify these companies, specific selection criteria were used. These selection criteria will be shown below, after which some of them will be given further explanation.

A company to be included should:

1) have underwent a change in 2) the last 5 years that

3) derives from adaptations in the company’s brand(s) and

4) the specific change should be in the list of typical branding advises (Chapter 2.2) Besides that, the companies preferably:

5) have introduced changes in the name or logo

6) be situated in Switzerland, France, Belgium or the Netherlands

Ad 2) In a fast changing world, the usage of recent examples is necessary to get a good picture how it is to implement a certain change at this moment. Risks of including data in the research that come from a time that employee attitudes were different can be excluded by taking recent examples.

Ad 3) Just as is the case with present and future essence CO’s, branding measures can be found back when formulated as changes in the company’s brand(s). There’s no search for companies that were subject of a branding procedure, but for companies that undergo consequences that are similar, knowingly; changes in the brand(s)

Ad 4) As explained, the participants should have underwent changes that resemble those changes Essence asks from CO's. Similarity can be discovered, when it becomes clear what traits a change has in common with the essence approach. For this reason it is a very important criterion that the change of the companies in this research is similar to the advises essence typically gives to its clients, listed in chapter 2.2.

Ad 5) Branding advises will always contain some form of logo change and may contain name changes. Suitability of companies in this research will be increased by making name or logo change a criterion.

Ad 6) Future CO's are expected to be situated in these 4 countries, companies from these countries therefore are expected to provide the most useful information.

18 Saunders, M. et. al. (2000), p. 174

THE INTRODUCTION OF A BRANDING APPROACH