Culture Doesn’t Have to Conflict With Brand Strategy!

Both the concepts of “culture” and “strategy” are not new. What is new is that these two concepts are used together. Because we have always heard that culture eats strategy for breakfast[1]. In other words, when the two of them get into a duel, culture will always win. Maybe because we accept that culture expresses a status quo and therefore something that cannot be changed (or can hardly change), this thought seemed very reasonable and logical to us. However, there is no need to clash culture and strategy in a way that makes them hurt each other; both of these phenomena just need to be designed rationally. Today, it is necessary to realize the power of the multiplier effect that occurs when culture and strategy work in harmony with each other. This is possible with our Strategic Culture Design model.

When we accepted that companies such as countries, cities, towns and villages also have a culture, things started to reach a slightly different dimension. The interesting thing is that the concept of culture, which is much older than a brand strategy for companies and institutions, is included in the equation so late. When we consider Kuru Kahveci Mehmet Efendi, we are talking about a Mehmet Efendi who sells dry coffee and his business culture. In the periods when brands matched with people, people were also equated with culture and many elements (values, rituals, etc.) in it. Over time, marketing and advertising professionals have separated the brand from this equation. They defined marketing as at least shaping perception, if not lying, and convinced people that packaging matters more than content. Those who took things much further here claimed that somehow people’s subconscious can be dominated by hidden elements in the logo and advertisement. A concept called “subliminal” has entered our lives. Maybe this perspective would have continued like this for a while… Maybe companies would believe that keeping the showcase beautiful for a while, no matter what was inside, would bring results and they would manage their brands in this way. For example, he could hide the damage he has done to nature by painting his logos green (YN: Here the author is referring to the term “Green Wash”). However, just as Nassim Nicholas Taleb is based on in his book Black Swan, the impact of the seemingly improbable (COVID-19) enabled many things to transform rapidly. Unlike others, I like to say “I told you so”; I had stated in the expectations for the new year published in Marketing Turkey in 2018 that brands should become more sincere due to the strengthening and transparency of communication. The pandemic, on the other hand, has become a catalyst here, as in many other things.

At the point we have arrived at, first of all, we need to change our perspective on the brand. Brand; It is a multidisciplinary system consisting of culture, brand strategy and customer experience. This system, on the other hand, has to be designed from the inside out, not from the outside in. You cannot serve food that is not cooked in your kitchen in front of your customers.

The Rise of Cultural Design

Cultures, like brand strategy and many other strategies, can be retrofitted. The method is both simple and difficult. It’s simple because designing the sub-elements it has is enough to design the culture. It is difficult because the application is like performing a surgical operation without anesthesia. Everything has to happen in consciousness. For companies, culture is a living organism whose basic building block is human.

On the other hand, there are many limitations in practice. For example, it is very difficult for a company with a status quo culture to create a libertarian brand. An organization can’t have fun creating a strong and successful brand in an area that leaves no room for error. Just like Kuru Kahveci Mehmet Efendi, who does his job carelessly and sells stale coffee, cannot create a brand that lives for 150 years…

Culture has two “customers”, so to speak. One of them is the consumers who experience the interior culture as reflected in the products and services and are aware of it even if they do not experience it thanks to the developing communication tools. A culture that “prefers to lose money rather than lose people’s trust” does not and cannot make a bad dishwasher. No one can call the crazy ideas of Lego workers “nonsense”. The most important contribution of culture to the brand strategy is to make the value proposition, which is the reason for customer preference, credible. This is the reason for the recent social responsibility gluttony; corporations think they can shape their culture with ostensible confessions and make a living out of it. What a pity.

The second customer of culture is insiders, employees whose search for meaning is increasing day by day (and peaking in this period). This increases the importance of employer branding.

The Rise of the Employer Brand

In our research on the Changing World of Meaning of the White Collar[2], which we conducted at the beginning of the pandemic, a father said: “We have been at home for a while. The pandemic has had a huge impact on me and my family. Recently, my mind stopped when my daughter came and said, “Dad, you are a very good person”. It turns out we missed a lot of things.” This example may sound so unrealistic to you, I know; hard to believe but true. A little more, a little more, we all found time to stop and think about what we missed.

We are now living in what Microsoft describes and envisions as the “Great wave of resignations[3]” (research from March 2021 indicates that more than 40% of current employees will change jobs within a year). The pandemic has changed business conditions and methods; needs redefined. Because of all this, the role of HR rose rapidly and came to a strategic point. In the past, HR was an operational rather than a strategic part of the business. He was even a “payroll” in some of them. On the other hand, this transformation had to be experienced to increase the importance of the employer brand. As the number of HR people on the boards of directors increases, practices regarding employer brand and culture will also increase.

This extraordinary experience we have had for more than a year has had a significant impact on the lives of our employees. On the other hand, the rapid increase in the importance of the subject paved the way for symbolic and ostensible practices devoid of infrastructure. Do not worry; Just because you wrote “We are a family” on the walls, your employee does not see you as his father. Just because you have organized a training once a month, people do not feel in a learning and developing organization.

At this point, corporate communication and HR will need to do much more together. HR professionals will have to learn brand and communication, corporate communicators will have to learn talent management. Employer brand strategy will be one of the most important issues of the new period.

[1] “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” by Peter Drucker

[2] The White Collar’s Changing World of Meaning, Goodjob Human Insight & Brand Strategy, August 2020

[3] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/hybrid-work and https://www.marketingturkiye.com.tr/haberler/buyuk-istifa-hareketi/