You’re in the home stretch of a company-wide rebranding effort, and all is on track for a successful launch. Many weeks or months ago, you won support for your rebranding strategy. Your creative agency developed your new brand identity and brand compliance guidelines that now guide your marketing and communications efforts. You conducted a detailed inventory and developed a plan for how to manage all your branded assets, and have solid budgets and timelines in place for the cost-effective implementation of your brand. You’ve defined what launch looks like and are ready to engage company members in the brand implementation/rollout phase.
Best Practices for the Decentralization of Brand Implementation Tasks
This article focuses on best practices for the decentralization of brand implementation tasks within your organization, where responsibility for the brand identity transition is being handled at a divisional, operational or geographic level. The most important takeaway is that to minimize risks to your budget, rollout plan, brand consistency, and launch date, you should thoroughly document the specifications for all brand implementation tasks and allocated budgets in detail before decentralization begins.
Examples of brand implementation tasks include rebranding your fleet of vehicles, the manufacture and installation of signage, transition of uniforms, ID badges, etc. Because a successful new brand rollout requires consistency, consistency, and (did we mention consistency?) across all branded assets, you can’t afford to allow room for subjective interpretation or discretion by those just joining the effort.
Utilize the Best Tools to Ensure Success
As the person or team in charge of the brand rollout plan, your project management and people skills will factor largely in your success during this phase. Utilize your best tools to ensure the dissemination of processes, schedules, and local budgets to all relevant stakeholders. Use your ‘referent power’ to engage and inspire a committed team that demonstrates complete buy-in and support. Give responsibility and accountability to the right people, and build in an effective quality control process.
Engaging people throughout the organization in your rebranding effort not only helps you share the load, it allows others to participate in a successful, highly visual outcome. Our next blog will share tips for leveraging executive support during this critical phase. Without it, delegating tasks to team members who don’t report to you is much more challenging. Tune in next week!
