Experience brands understand that a customer’s or prospect’s path to the brand passes directly through their own people. And if those people aren’t aligned to the organization’s purpose and brand and business ambitions, there’s little chance of delivering the kind of positive experience clients will want to repeat and share.

1. Your People, Your Brand:
Creating an experience brand means looking at brand experiences from the inside out

2. WHAT’S INSIDE
3/ INTRODUCTION
4/ WHY ALIGN?
7/ THE 5 PRINCIPLES OF INTERNAL ALIGNMENT
7/ PRINCIPLE #1 PURPOSE-LED
8/ PRINCIPLE #2 CREATIVE AND CUT-THROUGH
9/ PRINCIPLE #3 USEFUL
10/ PRINCIPLE #4 INTUITIVELY DESIGNED
11/ PRINCIPLE #5 EXPERTLY DELIVERED
12/ ALIGN BY DESIGN
13/ TALK TO JACK. LEARN MORE. FURTHER READING.
13/ ABOUT JACK MORTON
2/

3. INTRODUCTION
Your brand is what it does.
No one knows this more than employees and partners The downside: bad service is the main reason
who not only deliver brand experiences to customers and people give for having a bad experience, one
prospects but also experience it themselves – that’s still very much worth sharing, but not in
from the inside out.
the way you’d like.
As a result, successful experience brands don’t
just focus on the customer experience, they take a
“Brand2Everyone” approach that delivers consistent,
compelling experiences for every stakeholder, across Partners
every channel and touchpoint – including employees and
Employees Channels
partners (see figure 1.).
Experience brands understand that a customer’s or
prospect’s path to the brand passes directly through
their own people. And if those people aren’t aligned
to the organization’s purpose and brand and business Brand2
Government Consumers
ambitions, there’s little chance of delivering the kind of Everyone
positive experience clients will want to repeat and share.
Forthcoming research* will show the overwhelming
impact of a brand’s people on their customers: 4,000
people in four key markets (US, UK, China and
Australia) identified service and the people behind it as Investors Media
top influences on how they rate brands before, during
and after the sale – impacting intent to purchase, loyalty Prospects
and what they’re willing to pay. Figure 1.
3/
Introduction - Your brand is what it does. 3/

4. “The central issue is never
strategy, structure, culture, or
Why align? systems. The core of the matter
So, while the rest of the world looks
at brands as nouns, we look at them
is always about changing the
as verbs. Brands are experiences
– and those experiences start with behavior of people.”
employees and culture. What matters
is how employees behave on behalf John P. Kotter, Harvard Business School
of the brand. As John Kotter has said,
“The central issue is never strategy,
structure, culture, or systems. The core
of the matter is always about changing
the behavior of people.” Externally, an aligned workforce drives reward and recognize. A culture is simply
more revenue and customer loyalty by the sum total and reflection of our shared
Yet foundational research by Jefferey delivering consistent brand experiences, experience – an organization’s
Pfeffer of Stanford Business School improving time-to-market, and personalizing institutional memory.
estimates that only 12% of companies the experience to meet customers’ needs.
have a sufficiently motivating culture to They know what, when and how to engage Aligned workers are the sign of a strong
give them a competitive advantage. clients and partners successfully on behalf of corporate culture that adds value through
the brand – not because of a thick manual greater employee engagement, effort,
What the 12% know is that there is they were handed during orientation, but innovation and retention.
real value available to brands that because of the shared knowledge they have
focus on people-centered practices that comes from the organization’s culture. In addition to our own research, there is a
and positive brand experiences Corporate cultures are really just a set of growing mountain of data to support the
internally. When employee behaviors limits and pressures that guide the way fact that experience brands with highly
are aligned to brand and business people behave. There is no single process engaged employees do better—whether
ambitions, the workforce is more that drives or defines culture. Rather, it they’re measured by strength of their culture,
flexible, consistent and engaged, and is driven through many overlapping and the quality of the customer experiences
able to drive value in many coordinated processes around the things we they deliver, or quality of internal
different ways. say, the stories we tell, and the things we communication. For example, a five-year
Introduction - Why align? 4/

5. study by Watermark Consulting showed “customer experience” That, in turn, means focusing on inspiration as much as instruction,
leaders significantly outperforming other companies, achieving exploration and evaluation. Because, as Chip and Dan Heath have
22.5% growth compared to the S&P, which shrank an average argued, changing behavior is both an emotional and a rational
1.3% during the same period. process that requires campaigns that appeal to both**.
But aligning employees to deliver powerful brand experiences is On the journey from “no” to “know, believe, behave”, employee
hard work because it’s about changing behavior and directing the experiences are the central driver (see figure 2.).
way people act in increasingly complex situations.
It means delivering internal experiences that engage and entertain,
even as they educate employees and partners on the way “we”
treat our customers, prospects, partners and colleagues.
On-Brand Behavior
Live it
Believe it
Get it
Time
Figure 2.
Introduction - Why align? 5/

6. The 5 principles of internal alignment
Rallying internal and partner teams to deliver great experiences these days
means creating experiences for them that follow five key guiding principles.
Principle #1
Purpose-led: anchored in the with real clients in real situations. The site thus serves to
business and brand’s purpose both recognize and reinforce on-brand behavior.
and intent. Another great example of a purpose-led alignment
experience is a recent campaign we developed that
Simon Sinek makes a simple but powerful point in his famed was designed to engage and unite thousands of hospital
TED talk: When you want to lead people, you need to provide employees, ranging from janitors and volunteers to
a purpose first. Start with why – and appeal to the emotional surgeons and senior administrators, spread across more
side of behavior change. Only after you’ve done that can you than 20 campuses. Hospital and health insurance system
move on to “the way we do things” (How) and “the things we Scott & White Healthcare sought to align employees
do” (What). Taken together, why, how and what is a useful around a shared sense of the importance of each of
framework for understanding organizational culture and how their roles in the lives of the patients and families they
people learn the way things are done. serve. “It Matters” – a two-year internal campaign that
won PR Week’s Employee Communications Campaign
Walmart International is putting this framework in action with of the Year in 2011 – featured photos and stories
“The Walmart Way of Working”, a microsite and mobile of employees at all levels of the organization that
app for managers around the world. The internal microsite is demonstrated how what they do matters in the chain of
organized around a simple diagram that places the company’s patient care, serving people when they are at their
purpose at the center (to save people money so they can live most vulnerable.
better), then progresses through the culture and behaviors
(how), and common operating principles (what). The site
provides managers access to videos of associates from around
the world demonstrating the why, how and what of the culture
The 5 principles of internal alignment - Purpose-led 6/

7. The 5 principles of internal alignment
Principle #2
Creative and cut-through: “Put as much
telling, enabling and building
stories that cut through the clutter.
creativity into your
To engage employees, you need to be creatively
internal campaigns
engaging. Employees don’t define themselves differently as you do your
external ones.”
just because they’re at work – they’re media consumers
first. They expect clarity and great design in internal brand
information, training and tools, just as they do with other
brands in their lives as consumers. The amount of creative
effort you put into internal alignment campaigns is directly
tied to the resulting output of employees
and partners.
Creative internal campaigns stretch the brand in new ways.
KPMG recently deployed an internal program every bit as
hard-hitting and strategic as you’d expect, but leveraging
a photographic style so fresh and dynamic it looks more
like a consumer campaign. Great visuals are often the
difference between getting employees and partners to
engage with your messages instead of merely enduring
them. Put as much creativity into your internal campaigns
as you do your external ones.
The 5 principles of internal alignment - Creative and cut-through 7/

8. The 5 principles of internal alignment
Principle #3
Useful: helpful, generous,
turning people into willing users
and participants. So you can look at it as a dose of medicine employees
need to hold their noses and take simply because
We all know the drill. You’re barely keeping up with your “the boss said.” Or you can seize the opportunity
inbox, when, at the precise moment you think you can’t to demonstrate to employees and partners that you
squeeze in another task, an email arrives from the CEO understand their everyday experience and value the
about a mandatory elearning module you need to take. brand enough to care about the kind of impression it
Now imagine another scenario, in which the CEO sends makes on them, even if they’ve been with the
you a special invitation to get information that will make company for years.
you more successful in your job. The request recognizes
how busy you are and offers you something truly useful – Johnson & Johnson’s Global Marketing Group (GMG)
new knowledge, process, or skills – in exchange for wanted to re-energize and re-energe thousands of
your time. marketing staff and partners around the globe with
cutting-edge ideas and new ways to collaborate. The
We know which scenario will yield fewer groans – and challenge – marketing to marketers – drew heavily
better results. The more you offer something of value, on audience analysis and insights, and ultimately led
the more impact your experience will have on your to the rollout of internal website InsightsOut. Beyond
staff. The quality of any training and how it’s packaged the standard case studies and newsletters, InsightsOut
are important; they’ll indicate to every employee in the included interviews, webinars and a behind-the-scenes
company (and every partner asked to take the course as video series with innovative marketing leaders at outside
well), just how much (or how little) executive leadership companies like Google.
values their time.
The 5 principles of internal alignment - Useful 8/

9. The 5 principles of internal alignment
Principle #4
Intuitively designed: Digital sales tools help the SmartCloud brand teams at
IBM enable sales people to talk clearly, crisply and with
anticipating how users will want authority about the advantages of choosing IBM. Most are
focused on helping sales teams identify client needs, and
to interact. align them to IBM’s broad portfolio of products
and services.
People today expect things to work. No manuals. No
extended training time. Just an intuitive interface that they
“get” right away, with a clear set of benefits for engaging.
We’re often tapped by clients to develop sales enablement
tools and training that help sales people understand
products, learn new skills and engage with clients in the
most brand-friendly ways. These tools need to be easy-to-
“The tools need to be
use and immediately graspable, or they face a lonely life
on the already-crowded shelf of unused (and unloved)
easy to use....or they
sales tools. face a lonely life on
A recent Forrester Research report on sales enablement
accused most organizations of practicing “random acts of
the already crowded
sales support” where HR, product and portfolio managers,
marketing, and sales all scramble to meet senior executive
shelf of unused (and
demands for increased sales. In an environment like this,
the only tools that get used are the ones that are intuitive
unloved) sales tools”
and can be put into action right away, with little in the way
of explanation or training.
The 5 principles of internal alignment - Intuitively designed 9/

10. The 5 principles of internal alignment
Principle #5
If the experience makes a difference, then we should be
able to see results somewhere along the line – whether it’s
apparent in immediately measurable objectives like increased
Expertly delivered: purchase intent, advocacy, consideration or purchase, or
longer-term advantages we have to work a bit to identify,
brought to life creatively, effectively such as increased employee engagement (meaning effort,
which means productivity), or retention (see figure 3.). Just
and impactfully. like creative effort, your effort to manage return on your
investment should be as rigorous for internal campaigns as for
Any brand experience is only as good as the quality of its delivery those intended for the consumer marketplace.
– and that’s true of internal brand experiences as well. As a brand
experience agency, our skillset encompasses making and doing
as well as imagining and ideating. Sometimes our maker culture
Figure 3.
is focused on high-touch single engagements for extremely high-
level partner audiences, like the C-level events we produce for IBM;
sometimes we’re deploying lower-touch engagements across multiple
IMPACT ACROSS INDUSTRIES
delivery points – like the face-to-face sales training experiences we Our experience with brands across sectors demonstrates
executed for the Samsung Galaxy S, touching thousands of retail sales that aligning employees and partners drives real value
reps spread out in markets around the country. across industries:
Whatever the scenario, we know that a creative campaign that is A global consumer electronics client achieved +18%
poorly executed is simply a bad experience. Neither we nor our sales in retail locations where we aligned retail staff
on product benefits.
clients get credit for simply trying. Results are what matters.
A QSR leader typically sees 4% sales lift for franchises
And while we’re on the topic of results: what gets measured gets where employees are aligned on running promotional
done. So it’s fair to ask the question: If a brand experience happens and upsell customer experience programs.
and there’s no one there to measure it, does it make a difference?
A telecomm client saw improvements at call centers
including -23% call escalations, +15% service package
(It may – but we’ll never know.)
up-sells, +14% customer satisfaction.
The 5 principles of internal alignment - Expertly delivered 10/

11. Align by design
Like external brand experiences, your employees’ and
partners’ brand experiences don’t just happen. They’re
entirely under your control – and they can always be
better. Whether start-up or category leader, you can
ensure that your people are primed to support your
brand and business ambition by paying attention to
their experiences first.
Because, as we say:
your brand is what
your brand does.
Joe Panepinto, Phd is Vice President, Senior Strategist at
Jack Morton. You can reach him at
joe_panepinto@jackmorton.com.
9/
Align by design 11/

12. TALK TO JACK ABOUT JACK MORTON
Jack Morton Worldwide is a global brand experience agency
For information about Jack Morton, contact with offices on five continents. Our agency culture promotes
liz_bigham@jackmorton.com. breakthrough ideas about how experiences connect brands
Follow us on twitter @jackmorton and people – in person, online, at retail and through the
Visit us online at jackmorton.com power of digital and word of mouth influence. We work with
Read our blog at blog.jackmorton.com both BtoC and BtoB clients to create powerful and effective
experiences that engage customers and consumers, launch
products, align employees and build strong experience
*LEARN MORE brands. Ranked at the top of our field, we earned over 50
awards for creativity, execution and effectiveness last year.
Look for Jack Morton’s forthcoming research on Jack Morton is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc.
experience brands in March 2013. Additional (NYSE: IPG).
research and white papers can be found on
Jack Morton’s Slideshare channel. © Jack Morton Worldwide 2013
**FURTHER READING
Power: Why Some People Have it and Others
Don’t, Jefferey Pfeffer (2010)
Forrester Research, Sales Enablement Defined,
Scott Santucci (2010)
Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard,
Chip and Dan Heath (2011)
Talk to Jack. Learn More. Further reading. About Jack Morton. 12/