A Case in Point
SARAH WILLIAMS discusses Deloitte's recent advertising campaign
The Deloitte brand is more than a name, logo or set of corporate colours. It's everything our clients, suppliers and other stakeholders will use to form an opinion about us. For a professional services firm like ours, the Deloitte brand is as much in the hands of our 11,000 employees, as those of the central brand team. Each employee has the power to either build or damage the firm's reputation every time they interact with a client, supplier or potential recruit. And this involves every encounter - from the way our people present themselves at a client pitch, to the quality of service being delivered to clients, to how someone answers the phone or signs off on emails on a daily basis. Deloitte offers an internal brand consultancy service across the firm, to ensure that all our communications build the brand visually.
When introducing the Deloitte brand to new recruits at inductions, we refer to a quote by Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon.com) who says "your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room". Brands can be very fragile, so we take a lot of care to protect ours. We do not own the brand - it's a set of perceptions and expectations that reside in the minds of our clients and other key stakeholders.
With the ever-increasing popularity of online communication channels like social networking
sites, blogs and media platforms like YouTube, it only takes one person to communicate a negative experience to be shared with millions of people and cause significant damage to a brand. Every time our stakeholders see, hear or experience Deloitte, we need to ensure they react positively. Influencing and managing these perceptions is essentially what branding is all about.
In March 2007, Deloitte launched a multimedia national advertising campaign to build awareness and understanding of Deloitte, build brand eminence and enhance our reputation. The initial campaign ran for three months. It was the first Big Four offensive on this scale for eight years. It targeted the UK business community; existing clients and prospective clients, as well as existing staff and potential new recruits. A second phase of activity followed in November 2007 with 60 Deloitte branded cabs on London streets running until November 2008. Press and online advertising supported this second burst from January to June 2008.
The campaign used creative executions which were designed to interact with the media in which they appeared. We chose eminent media combining outdoor advertising in dominant high profile spaces, major business press, and online advertising through sponsorship of FT.com, Times Online and Google word search. This focus on quality of media was intended to convey our own internal focus on quality to the market.
To bring the campaign to life internally, an extensive marketing programme existed pre-, during and post-advertising covering the full mix of communications including an intranet microsite with interactive activities such as a poll on people's favourite advertisement, and a competition to get our people to design a headline for a future campaign. Internal posters, articles within newsletters and a travelling showcase stand for reception areas helped raise awareness of the campaign. Team briefings were held across the UK to give people the confidence to deliver the campaign's key messages to clients face to face. We branded our internal environment to incorporate the campaign using the advertising messages in innovative ways - on coffee cup holders, stationery and our buildings.
Research with chief executives showed that the campaign increased brand awareness and understanding. And those that had seen the advertising were 22% more likely to consider using Deloitte services in the future than those who had not.
Sarah Williams is a brand executive at Deloitte.