Detergent brand BlitzIt is already enjoying returns on its internal brand alignment strategy, as evidenced by the recent ‘brand alignment’ of a BlitzIt staff member. John Doe reports…
Alicia Waggi, senior technical assistant in the BlitzIt IT department, has formally declared her love, respect and admiration for the BlitzIt brand, whilst simultaneously acknowledging profound synergies between her personal life and her work experiences at BlitzIt’s Bryanston headquarters.
Waggi’s formal declaration was greeted with cautious enthusiasm by the bathroom detergent brand’s HR director, Norma Simmons.
“We pride ourselves on the resonance of our brand values across all touch points and within the social and home lives of our employees,” said Simmons. “We thus welcome Alicia’s declaration.”
Clarification on the reserved nature of BlitzIt’s response to Waggi’s declaration has been provided by Waggi’s work colleagues. According to them, Waggi has at various times called the brand’s internal alignment drive, ‘neo capitalist fascism…’, a ‘barbarous violation of the constitutional protection of personal dignity…’, and ‘the worst crap I have ever had to endure.’
“She made no secret of how much she hated the brand stuff,” says one anonymous work friend. “Most people are sure that it was her who was sending brand liberation emails to everyone, but there was no proof. But at the last Christmas party she definitely called Norma ‘a facist yellow duck’, and, ‘lacky of the exploiters and BMW pigs.'”
Waggi’s statement (released to selected BlitzIt internal stakeholders and brand working groups) expressed in unequivocal and emotional terms her new found attachment to the BlitzIt brand.
Apart from declaring love and long term brand loyalty, Waggi’s statement also addressed the synergies between her life as a mother and a BlitzIt IT technician. In particular, Waggi expressed gratitude to her employers for fully unpacking the notion of the internal customer in a profound brand workshop session. The Waggi household has now adopted the BlitzIt pay off line (BlitzIt – every time) as a call to domestic arms, and reclassification of family members according to internal client status has generated unprecedented interest in the dish washing roster from the kidz segment (3 – 8 years old).
“I had no idea just how closely aligned my home life and my work life actually are,” Waggi’s statement reads. “Only once the BlitzIt pay off line really clicked – at a company workshop on the meaning of courage, destiny and customer-centric focus – did the picture become clear. It’s so obvious now. The way to a better life for everyone is to achieve true synergy between brand values and actions. And what better way than to have fully aligned my internal family brand with the internal BlitzIt brand?”
BlitzIt’s internal brand alignment programme was developed by strategic media agency CBA Ford Smith Jones Broadbent and Ndimande (CBA). “I think Alicia’s alignment with the BlitzIt brand values is important, tangible evidence of the efficacy of internal branding programmes,” comments Tomlin Harris, chief consultant on the project. “A lot of the time staff are simply not aware of how relevant to their daily lives the company brand is. A sustained internal brand programme can, as we have seen, rectify this quite quickly. This really does impact on the company bottom line – in this case internal IT clients will be serviced the BlitzIt way at all times, and that ‘brand delivery’ ultimately radiates out and impacts strongly on the end consumer. It’s a win-win situation.”
Work colleagues have, however, also pointed out that Waggi’s statement was released the day after a comprehensive BlitzIt business process re-engineering strategy (developed by CBA’s sister company, Hatchet Consulting) was announced, with a focus on streamlining the technology division, enhancing information flow through ‘non-people-intensive’ system upgrades and aligning performance assessments and salaries to demonstrable workplace actions around BlitzIt’s core set of brand values.
When asked for additional comment on her statement, Mrs Waggi asked this reporter to “please leave me alone to focus on my key client groups and engage effectively with all relevant role-players utilising the brand feedback and action template provided to me upon induction.”
— John Doe has enjoyed a long career as an executive assistant, working with a variety of major global brands in a clerical capacity. Long famed in the corporate sector for his legendary dictation skills, Doe has recently also gained acclaim for his incisive media journalism. Although queries have been raised as to the veracity of some of his information, Doe is adamant that he simply reports on media issues that he comes into contact with – his sources remain a closely guarded secret. Doe dismisses as ‘unsubstantiated’ and ‘possibly defamatory’ allegations that he is in fact one Andrew Miller of Unity Design.