Installment 4 - The INs Go On ...

Before continuing my discussion of The 7 INs of InternalBranding, allow me to comment on Super Bowl XLII and my previous post on the New England Patriots. While I would normally observe a New England squad where the initial *i* was not in the spelling of *team*, one has to wonder if the initial *i* crept into the picture on that now famous Sunday in Arizona. I felt we were watching a Pat's teim that day. On the other hand, we also watched a team led by a guy named Eli ... or would that be Elae? Congratulations to the underdog NY Giants team. Truly, it was a history-making day in the world of football.

#4 – INnovate: ‘Out of the Box’ Thinking Defines A Brand

When Steven Job’s Apple Computers launched the revolutionary Macintosh, and ran its infamous ‘Lemmings’ TV commercial on the Super Bowl, it was also creating a cult among computer users that still exists today. While Apple only owns a small share of the market, its faithful customer base is fiercely loyal and combative about the superiority of the product. Underpinning this fierce consumer loyalty is a dedicated workforce at Apple that has always embraced innovation as its Brand mantra. Call it the David and Goliath story of personal computers. Apple’s ‘David’ still revels in tweaking the Microsoft ‘Goliath’ – whether it is in product innovation or taking potshots in advertising. Jobs created an employee environment that pivots around, and rewards employees for innovation.

Boston Beer, maker of Samuel Adams Beer, has been an innovator in INternalMarketing since its inception, and has grown in leaps and bounds as a result. One way Boston Beer encourages its employees to be innovative is through its training programs. It makes training experiential and fun. Training isn’t about showing employees how, rather it’s about having them create a new Brand Experience by creating new home brews. Boston Beer has innovatively developed a ‘Training – Reward – Morale Boosting’ program in the form of a home brew contest that encourages its employees to think about being innovative – and be rewarded for doing so.

#5 – INitiative: When Employees Take Matters Into Their Own Hands Everybody Benefits

A friend recounted about how impressive it was to walk into his room at the Ritz Carlton in Boston to find a huge bouquet of flowers had been placed in the room. He’s not that big on flowers, but his wife is. He had ordered a huge arrangement for his arrival at the Ritz in San Juan six months prior. An employee at the Boston Ritz – who reviews the Core Values of the Brand with co-workers daily and carries a Brand Ambassador card in his uniform – saw this in his customer profile and took it upon himself to order the flowers for his wife who, incidentally, was not accompanying him on the trip. But imagine my friend’s surprise and delight that this employee had taken the initiative that wins consumer loyalty – no small benefit to the Ritz in a fiercely competitive luxury hotel category.

While we are on the subject of hotels, I had stayed in a Hampton Inn several years ago and was not overly impressed by its bargain feel and atmosphere. Since then, the chain started to view things differently. The product and properties were upgraded, brand messaging – INternaland external – refreshed and made entertaining. Recently, I had another opportunity to stay in a Hampton Inn because somebody else had booked me there. Well, what a pleasant surprise. Who would have expected to see a delightful poster of a wide-eyed man grinning back at me from the inside of the elevator door urging me to “Smile” – which did make me smile. However, the thing that really struck
me was the message that greeted me on the hotel’s front door – ‘100% Satisfaction’. What I would learn is that every single employee in the hotel – maids, maintenance people, the breakfast buffet server and the front desk staff – was empowered to take the initiative to comp my room for that night if I was not happy with my stay. What I also found out later was for every $1 Hampton Inns spends on the ‘100% Hampton’ guarantee, they get back $7 in repeat business. Talk about benefiting from employees taking initiative.

#6 – INtegrity­: It’s All About Doing the Right Thing

In November of 1998, 3,500 employees of Federal Express stormed FedEx’s headquarters with picket signs and an indisputable passion for their cause. They would not tolerate the thought that their only unionized work group – the pilots – would dare to contemplate striking the company during the heaviest overnight delivery season of the year, Christmas.

Their wrath and signs were not targeted at the company, rather the pilots union that would dare compromise the Brand Promise upon which the FedEx business model was founded, and the Brand Experience they had worked so diligently to make ‘the norm’ over the years. They wanted the pilots to know that they were 100% behind the company’s position, so FedEx launched a major INternalMarketing initiative to leverage the support of the general employee population against the pending strike. Using posters, buttons, banners, bumper stickers, T-shirts, an Intranet site and the company’s FXTV digital broadcast network, they waged their case against the strike and finally prevailed when the pilots returned to the bargaining table and negotiated a settlement with the company. Even more remarkable was the company’s stock soared during the negotiations, INternalservice measures increased, and the company retained its position in Fortune Magazine’s ‘Top 100 To Work For’ list. When all was said and done, such drastic and dramatic efforts of these employees could be attributed to one particular value they all embraced – integrity. After all, the Christmas presents had to be there by December 25th. That was the promise the employees had made year after year. No pilots union was going to compromise the integrity of all the other FedEx employees in living their promise and delivering the experience loyal customers had learned to expect.

Now stayed tuned for # 7. It's the "keeper".