It has long been recognised that name and reputation are highly important. William Shakespeare wrote about this:

 

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.  (Othello)

 

Branding in fast moving consumer goods is widely implemented and accepted as a form of differentiation. However, business-to-business branding is equally important as a form of differentiation in business markets. Such branding is already highly developed with major brands seen in the markets such as KPMG, McKinsey, and Citibank.

 

Increasingly in businesses such as providers of professional services, name and reputation are being regarded as brands. The term brand can be applied to limited applications such as the look and feel of communications by brochures and websites.  However, in many instances today branding can extend much further to encompass a whole culture and way of doing business.

 

Brand targets
Some of the most successful service companies have clear brand propositions which are understood throughout the organisations and effectively target key audiences. One of the leading investment banks, for example, targets its brands at the following distinct stakeholder groups:

 

• customer
• staff
• graduate recruits

 

The last of these is particularly interesting. Basically the investment bank sees its future people as key and wants to ensure that it recruits the best - and those that aren't recruited must also be given a positive image of the brand as they could be future employees, competitors or clients. These are people who (in this particular case) will embrace their way of doing business and their culture, which involves relentless hard work. This differs from the recruitment policy of another leading service business, a consultancy which aims to recruit individuals who are highly intelligent and the best in their field (which can be any field). 

 

Attracting the best graduate recruits means that careers in the business have to be sold through the brand to candidates. Different groups of candidates have different values, for one making lots of money might be in, for another it might be vocational or voluntary work.  Also these perceptions by these groups of investment bank brands will be very different from perceptions in the City, or the values of customers (another key target). Consistency in brand communications is important, so careful attention needs to be given to communicating through the brand to these different key stakeholders and their diverse needs.

 

Differentiation
In today's markets differentiation is becoming more and more difficult. Taking law firms as an example, they clearly invest a lot in their brands.  However, it is difficult to distinguish these brands from each other, apart from perhaps the people you know there or an impression of the way they have of doing business. Differentiation is therefore pretty unclear in this market by looking at the brands. For the firms that manage to achieve a good differentiation there must be scope for sustainable competitive advantage. This most likely can't really be done on the reputations of individual lawyers.

 

There is real differentiation between law firms, for example, in their people and their client relationship. If this can be drawn out, clearly articulated and worked on using a series of ongoing workshops then the people will be able to clearly say what their firm stands for and why they are different from the others. When people pull together for such a common cause then this will strengthen the value of the corporate brand. Ultimately this will create many benefits, not least as winning business will be easier and less costly.

 

Planning and measuring
People need to be motivated to change and improve things. So any effort to build up the value of a service brand needs to be accompanied by a plan and a way of measuring performance against that plan. There is often a dilemma here as the more complex the measures the more valid they are likely to be, whereas the more simple the measures the more usable they are likely to be. I tend to favour a simpler more understandable approach, which is perhaps less robust but practical and cost efficient.

 

It is not necessary to do a brand valuation to measure the effectiveness of a programme to increase brand value. However a rigorous process makes sense as it is important, and will need to link brand strategy to business value.

 

Analysis of the key drivers of value will give key performance indicators which could then be drawn into a brand health index which is based on.
1. Market growth
2. Market share
3. Strength of reputation
4. Level of differentiation
5. Experience and quality of employees
6. Increase in profitability

 

Usually this process will require some research and will highlight a wealth of useful information.  Simply assessing the market, its size and growth prospects and the market share of the business within that is very revealing. There is a huge amount of information available and it puts plans and forecasts into context.  Benchmarking against competitors gives a lot of information.  One of the benefits coming out of the process will be a reality check of the business' plan, and the risk of it not being achieved.

 

Regular measuring and monitoring of this would help improve the value, and it could be communicated back in a clear and simple way.

 

Conclusion
Branding of service businesses is an interesting and developing area. Those service business that can build a clear differentiation from their brands will find a source of sustainable competitive advantage, something which all businesses strive for.