From VentureRepublic:
Brand champions are internal and external story tellers who spread the brand vision, brand values and cultivate the brand in an organisation. Every organisation needs committed and passionate brand champions. The more employees the organisation can turn into brand champions, the better will it be equipped to build and maintain strong brand equity. Singapore Airlines, L’Oreal, Harley Davidson, Nike, Google and LEGO are well-known examples of companies which benefit tremendously from their employees being strong and dedicated brand champions.
My company has more employees than it has customers. These employees leave work every day and have conversations and interactions with complete strangers in homes, bars, stores, restaurants, etc. Some of those people know our company exists, and some are getting their first glimpse of us.
Are they saying good things? Are they telling the world how amazing it is to work for this company? Are they enhancing our reputation?
I hope so.
Some people recommend hiring great people and inspiring them to do amazing things. Sounds like a plan to me. Find a way to make brand champions out of your employees. You won’t regret it.
Photo by pinksherbet
You can print a gazillion tzotchkes with your logo and put up a huge billboard in your community say how great you are. But just like advocates for any product, brand champions are grown organically and the message spreads by word of mouth and social media.
More companies would benefit to listen to the message to hire great people and inspire them to do amazing things. All too often, employers want “turn-key” new hires.
This post has a great message and the little one is a cutey
@karla_porter
I think the key to brand champions is simple – a remarkable product. It’s easy to talk about products and experiences that are awesome.
I don’t think this is something you create a process around, I think it’s something that happens from creating stuff worth talking about.
Good article, made me think.
Nice post. Glad I stopped by!
@Amanda And thank you very much for doing so! Appreciate the comment!
@Ted So if we can give employees an amazing work experience that they can tell a story about, then we’re golden? Great comment. Thanks for stopping by!
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Even more important with social media: http://ls-workgirl.blogspot.com/2010/07/got-passion.html. A Lufthansa employee once won me over with his excitement about the fact that Lufthansa serves Swiss chocolate. I prefer Belgian chocolate and the Lufthansa seats are too small for my 6 year old but his enthusiasm was infectious.
working girl´s last [type] ..Who says HR cant be funny