How to build a brand in five months or less

What makes a great brand? I’d argue it goes far beyond simply a logo that you would associate with a company’s product or service. A brand, done right, builds an emotional connection to the customer. Author and branding expert Marty Neumeier says that a brand is ‘a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or organisation’, because people are emotional beings. According to a CEB Gartner study, B2B brands drive much higher emotional connection than B2C, a fact not often recognized in our B2B world.

When I started in my role as CMO at Vodafone Business six months ago, I was struck by how passionate our team was about driving better results for our customers. They acted as true partners and thought through the best technology solution we could provide to solve their challenges. But this attitude and approach was not reflected in our brand. When my CEO asked me to address this, I decided there was no time to lose.

A brand refresh, especially a global one, is no small feat – most companies take 12-18 months to review, with countless iterations, negotiations and debates along the way. With my brief in hand, I set out to do it in five.

Our first step was to talk to our customers. This was possibly the easiest part of our journey, as customers were eager to give us feedback.

When my team and I began to explore the idea of a refresh, reaching out to customers from the home office to the board room, every person was broadly worried about the same thing - digital transformation. We sought feedback from over 3000 customers and what we heard was surprisingly consistent.

It was clear to us that our customers want a partner to join them on their digital journey, a partner they can trust. One CIO from a multinational customer of ours actually took me aside to tell me how much he valued our partnership, but that he hadn’t heard us talking about the great things that we do.

A month into our brand refresh journey we brought on our agency partner, JWT. They were shocked to hear of our tight timelines, but energised to make it happen. We gave them a clear brief: bring to life the partnership we have with our customers of all sizes, and illustrate the power that our technology solutions can have for our customers and by extension, their customers.

Next we talked to our markets. It was imperative that we took into account the challenges they each faced and the nuances that shape their businesses. We shared early ideas to get feedback on the go. And we had many conversations with our local marketers to brainstorm based on their experience with our sales teams and customers and to understand why we stand out.

At the four-month mark, we engaged our industry analyst community. I wanted our team to benefit from the context of the wider technology and telco industry that only analysts can bring. And I felt confident knowing we’d done our homework. Their feedback confirmed what we were already feeling – that we’d hit upon a refreshed brand that clearly articulated not only what we offered, but that tapped into the emotion our customers felt when working with us.

Five months later – slightly windswept but still standing – I’m thrilled to unveil our refreshed brand. Vodafone is so much more than mobile and the biggest journey is still ahead, as we build awareness among our current and future customers about our offerings across connectivity, SDN, cloud, IoT and much more. Technology is opening up incredible opportunities and transforming the way we work. Our brand reflects the notion that our customers have products and services that are changing the world every day, and if our solutions can enhance those offerings, we all win.

We are immensely proud of the work we do to support our customers in their digital journey. We do this not only in our services, but by being transparent in our own transformation experiences, sharing lessons learned along the way.

So, how do you build a brand in five months or less? You start by having an amazing team with drive, energy and passion. I also think it’s by believing in the strong foundation your people have already built with customers. It’s by tapping into the heart and passion they bring to work each day. And most importantly it’s by simply asking your customers why they keep coming back to you. From there the rest is (relatively) simple.