Strategic Brand Communication - Essay Example

Building brand equity requires communication effectiveness. If the brand equity is high, consumers may be willing to process these communications more favourably (Keller, 2009). However, today companies have evolved from these stages of brand management and as per Goodyear’s model many organizations have evolved and reached the stage where brand is viewed as a policy (McEnally and De Chernatony, 1999). Brand communication has evolved from helping consumers organize their knowledge about products and services based on the mental structures enabling them to clarify their decision making.

Brand communication must also be directed at employees as they are an important part of ‘performing the brand’. The Body Shop is one such company where its employees live the brand. Branding is the means to distinguish goods of one producer from another. Referring to a brand means the product or service has created certain amount of awareness, prominence and reputation in the market place (Keller, Parameswaran and Jacob, 2008, p1). Developing employees to participate in the brand and live the brand is known as internal branding.

Consumers can form brand associations in a variety of ways – other than marketing activities. . In other words, employees communicate the brand through their activities. Communication directed at employees has several dimensions. First, employees must know what they are expected to project. This implies that employees must receive messages that are consistent, frequent and in alignment with the organizational mission, vision and core values. Employees’ understanding and knowledge of the desired brand is necessary to facilitate brand communication.

Employees must have the capacity to internalize the desired brand image and then reflect it to others. This suggests that the organization or the leader must first demonstrate the values. Anita Roddick’s concern for the environment manifests itself in the plan of The Body Shop (Argenti and Druckenmiller, 2004). The leader’s own personality can help shape the personality of their company’s brand. This is evident from the way that the leader created the brand image without engaging in conventional advertising.

The Body Shop created a brand image without going in for conventional advertising (Keller, Parameswaran and Jacob, 2008, p57). It strongly associated with personal care and environmental concerns as it used only natural ingredients and never tested on animals. They communicated this message through advertising which helped build the brand image of an ethical company. Their environmental concerns are also communicated through packaging which is simple, refillable and recyclable. Staff at The Body Shop is always encouraged to be enthusiastic and informative about environmental issues.

Their sourcing policy also communicated their brand image – they use local small producers from around the world. They engage in social action program which