Know-How Exchange : Branding

Likely you won't convince. Or it would be too costly with your relationship with the CMO to get them to change.

Might be easier to have marketing step back now and see if HR wants to take this and run with it.

That's an interesting problem. Doesn't your CMO get that the employees are the first line ambassadors of the brand? They MUST be excited about it in order to convey that excitement to your customers, whether you're a B2B or a B2C. You probably also have new graphic standards to go with it and this is a great time to share that with them, as well as the message behind the brand. This is an opportunity for team-building and identity cohesion within the company. You need to educate them on what the new brand means and why you redesigned it. It's about company buy-in and jazzing up the stakeholders.

I had to do some looking to find a decent web article on gaining employee buy-in for re-branding, but finally found one. This is on a more extensive re-branding than it sounds like you did, but the results are good.

Good luck with convincing your CMO. He doesn't seem to understand the importance of employee buy-in very well when it comes to rolling out a new brand.

https://www.vergil.no/how-to-prep-your-staff-for-corporate-rebranding.44870...

cfisher,

Here are a few articles on celebrating milestones that I think address your question.

https://www.e-myth.com/cs/user/print/post/the-business-benefits-of-celebrat...

https://smallbusiness.uprinting.com/small-business-management-tip-celebrate...

https://www.shorenewstoday.com/snt/news/index.php/business/16938-wawa-store...

https://bobandrosemary.com/reaching-business-milesone/

As a former director of marketing, I know that it is important to if not celebrate, at least inform and explain why it is so important that marketing created a new logo. Make sure that everybody understands what it stands for and why that is important to the company and the customers. Tell them a story and serve them cake and ice cream and make them feel good about working for your company. It never hurts to build morale, particularly in these troubling times.

I hope this helps,

Andy

CFISHER -- Your question points to several potential issues, most of which are hard to assess without knowing more about the company. What is the role of marketing, how much pull does the CMO have at the senior level, is marketing seen as strategic, tactical, or just pretty images on powerpoint, etc.

To the question you raised, a few observations and a question for you:
1. New logos CAN really empower a workforce, particularly when a company is moving to a new stage in its history. That may be a new management team, a new focus on particular markets, and even fundamental shifts in what the company develops, markets and sells.
2. The more that you can demonstrate how the new logo will either inspire the employees or motivate them to embrace change, the better your chances of gaining support.
3. Enlist HR to help win the day. Most HR people LOVE to get involved in this type of stuff (and can sometimes overstep) and it sounds like you could use some additional support internally.
4. As a comparison, we recently helped one of our clients rollout a new logo. That included changing signage on three buildings (exterior and interior), reprinting employee security/building access badges, business cards, a specialized logo lapel pin, coffee mugs with the new logo, a new manifesto ad with the new brand and a letter from the CEO to motivate all the employees about the new chapter the company was writing. All of this was arranged in advance and executed in the evening so that when employees arrived in the morning, the new brand was fully in place. It was an exciting day and the team there is still fired up 2 weeks later! It wasn't about marketing -- it was about the employees.
5. My question for you: Why did the company change the logo? That answer may shed some important light on how to affect the change with your CMO.

Hope that was helpful!