Companies invest a fortune in developing a brand proposition that will (hopefully) differentiate them from the competition and ultimately drive growth. Then they invest significant time and resources in embedding their new brand positioning, ensuring it is fully understood by staff and that everyone lives and breathes the vision and values.

When it comes to measuring how well they are doing in aligning their brand, they turn to the ‘tried and trusted’ brand tracking study. Usually this involves gauging awareness and perceptions of the brand amongst key target audiences – typically customers, prospects and, for some businesses, intermediaries.

Many, however, neglect to measure brand perceptions amongst the deliverers – the staff themselves. Yes they run employee surveys to monitor staff perceptions, but these tend to be focused on evaluating internal perceptions of the organisational culture, communications, line management, and pay and reward systems within the business. Rarely do they provide a detailed assessment of staff’s perceptions of the brand.

We were conscious of this when we worked alongside our partners, Brand Vista, to develop the Brand Alignment Monitor, or BAMTM. This new approach to brand tracking is based on the way brands are built today, not just through communications, but also the 1000s of small gestures linked to people, processes and innovation.

The BAMTM provides our clients with a clear and simple assessment of how well they are doing in aligning their brand to the desired position. It has been adopted by many leading companies to evaluate how well their brands are doing, including Merlin Entertainments, David Lloyd Leisure and Gazprom Energy.

One of the things it does is measure exactly what staff think of the brand. This has proven invaluable in helping our clients to understand:

• How well the brand proposition has been embedded within the business
• Any differences in perceptions by site, department, grade / status, time with the business or other important criteria
• Areas of the business where staff are not fully behind or don’t understand certain aspects of the brand positioning

Armed with this insight, our clients are able to focus their efforts in the key areas that matter to educate and encourage staff to adopt the appropriate behaviours that will improve customer experience and brand alignment.

To conclude, don’t ignore your staff. They provide further fuel to help you to accelerate your brand and customer experience alignment.

For more information about the BAMTM and how it could work for your business, please contact me at colin.auton@mustard-research.com or give me a call on 07990 572917.