Ross and Brand – not living the brand

A case of individual or corporate responsibility? Whatever you think of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, when they made that phone call to Andrew Sachs, it did indeed seem like they omitted to stop and consider how some people may well view what they were doing and, crucially, so did their bosses.

At the time, there were just two complaints following the broadcast, so it might have been seen as one small incident, were it not for the media coverage which stimulated thousands of complaints. An outraged collective that hadn’t even heard the original broadcast caused a national outcry and media frenzy, the ferocity of which will be discussed for years to come.

It demonstrated the power of customer perception, and how quickly negative word-of-mouth spreads when an employee, a brand and customer experience representative, acts out of character with their organisation’s brand. Carol Thatcher’s faux pas on BBC’s One Show, a comment made off air in the green room and made public by gossip proved the point beyond doubt.

Both incidents serve to show just how important it is for all of us, employees and employers, to not only make sure we’ve considered the scope of possible reactions to what we’re doing, no matter what the size or nature of our organisation, but also that everyone in our organisation thinks about that too, and knows what our brand stands for and standards are, so that we don’t damage customer relationships and perceptions of us. This needs particular vigilance if we’re evolving our brand and its values as the BBC has been trying to do of late. To ensure against such customer expectation and brand misalignment, any ensuing bad publicity and backlash, it’s essential that everyone knows what it means to be your brand, live your brand and be the ambassadors your organisation wants them to be, rather than the loose canons, innocent or otherwise, they could be without that guidance and those boundaries.

As with these cases at the BBC, it’s vital that living and upholding the brand is projected by everyone, through everything they do, and importantly, that it is led from the top down. After all, it was more senior people than Ross and Brand who allowed the incident to be broadcast. Even if only temporarily, had their bosses also lost sight of their brand values, what customer expectations they should be meeting and what living their brand should be about?
In the news recently, a young woman was sacked from her job in a marketing company after only three weeks for disrespecting its brand, because she was emailing her colleagues with a daily “Isn’t this boring?” diary, and trying to drag them down to her level of misery about the company.

Are your people living up to your brand, your customers’ expectations of that, and your good reputation that you’ve worked hard to build with your customers and business partners over the years, or are they perhaps, unwittingly or otherwise, contributing to knocking it down? If so, you’ll also be wasting a chunk of any marketing, communications and sales budget you’ve spent and are spending building your brand in the first place
All employees can have a massive impact on the type and quantity of referrals your organisation gets.

Whether you’re a global, national, or smaller regional brand; whether your brand is fully established or evolving, are all your employees (including sub-contractors and other associates) being the brand your customers expect them to be? If not, you’ll be leaving yourself wide open to damaging your brand and reputation, confusing customers, giving them a poorer experience of you than they are expecting, creating poor word-of-mouth and driving existing and potential customers and partners away. This may not happen through one big incident necessarily either. It could be through a drip feed of small things that in isolation could seem trivial, but to a customer, this could be one in a string. The fact the BBC has now also been fined £150K for allowing the Ross/Brand broadcast to be aired, goes to show that you can stand to lose even more than valuable customers and reputation.

Everyone living your brand, protecting your customer experience and reputation and going beyond that to pro-actively promote your organisation, is what I call ‘Whole Organisation Marketing’. The customer experience and marketing should be everyone’s responsibility, whatever job they do or level they’re at, in order to give customers that fabulous experience of your brand and get you remembered for all the right reasons.

If everyone does ‘Whole Organisation Marketing’ and does it consistently, your organisation will be able to achieve that well orchestrated brand and customer experience, to keep you centre stage in your audiences’ eyes, and boost your brand and your bottom line. You’ll be creating the image, reputation, and level of success you want and deserve, rather than the one that just happens to you. The responsibility lies with everyone to be in tune with your brand, but the song has to be conducted from the top.

Carolyn Dallaway is a conference speaker, trainer and consultant strategist in living the brand and customer experience.