When Brands Collide: Personal vs. Corporate

The following originally appeared as a June 2011 Management POV column in PR News.

@ScottMonty is an unlikely Twitter handle for Ford Motor Company’s leading presence on the site. “I knew that I had the ability to leverage my personal brand on behalf of the company,” said Monty, Ford’s global digital and multimedia communications manager in a recent Fortune story discussing his move to the automaker in 2008. Thousands of existing, personal online fans followed him to Ford.

But when Monty eventually leaves Ford, will his fans pick-up and travel with him? Possibly so. This is just one dilemma of the increasingly complex intersection between personal and organizational brands.

Not Just Online

Today’s unsettled personal-organizational brand relationships are not just confined to the digital world. Cast your eye toward the recent challenges at Kodak with its chief marketing officer – a bigger-than-life communicator who focused on advancing the company’s brand, but in time concentrated more on his own persona.

After leading the company into a number of semi-high profile ventures such as reality TV appearances and strolls down Hollywood red carpets, he left the photography giant this summer. It’s no coincidence that his departure “to pursue personal projects” came just a few days after his much-publicized business book hit shelves, and weeks after his promotional efforts became more self-focused than Kodak-focused.

But for every negative story, there are also tales of positive personal brand usage to advance organization agendas and vice versa. A small non-profit suddenly gets massive exposure after an employee performs a heroic act. Or a multinational company starts an ambassador program, pumping resources into star employees to encourage them to broadly share their experiences.

So how do the organization and the individual achieve symbiosis in this new environment?

• Establish guidelines and expectations for shared branding. These may exist as part of formal policy or as an informal agreement, depending on your governance culture. Be as explicit as possible as to what is encouraged and what is not acceptable, leaving some “gray” to account for unexpected opportunities.

• Train and coach. Policy or informal agreement means little without active coaching. Have regular discussions with individuals and groups about what’s working well, and where challenges are arising with personal brands. Don’t limit this to your organization – look to competitors and outside your industry to see how others are succeeding or failing.
  
  
• Tap existing influencers. Influencers have always existed in organizations, well before the advent of social media. Go “old school” and work with these colleagues who likely have been honing their personal brands for years. While this technique could have national or international benefits in some cases, don’t forget the hyper-local approach. Some personal brands can be more effective in a small sphere – for instance, at a particular office or plant location.
  
  
• Address the problem children. Ignoring a company-personal brand conflict won’t make it disappear. I’m reminded of a local market TV station where a top reporter blends questionable, highly subjective content with occasional news blurbs via Twitter. In effect, the reporter has become the story, growing a base of followers greater than the station itself. By not actively addressing her behavior, the reputation of the station – and its news team as a whole – is at risk.
  
  
• Reward success. If the organization-personal brand relationship is intended to be mutually beneficial, both parties should be clear in their expectation of benefits. For the organization contributing resources, are the personal brands of its employees or volunteers driving awareness, sales or other desirable metrics? For the contributing individuals, are they benefiting through increased responsibility, exposure, or even compensation?
  
  
• Have a plan for when things go wrong. What happens if a “branded” employee is arrested for a serious crime then continues to unofficially represent the company? What if the company faces corruption charges, sullying the reputation of everyone associated with it? Both the organization and its employees need to prepare themselves for unexpected change or disruption.
  

Know Your “Off Ramp”

“We need our brand to be consistent, and our organization to be seen as stable in the community,” says a development director at a major non-profit service group. “It’s a challenge to determine if elevating the profiles of individual team members will ultimately help or hurt that, since we know that over time some people will come and go.”

The challenge of shared organizational-personal branding is not a new one, but it’s taking on a new dynamic in today’s semi-unstructured digital environment. This is especially true when a company and employee choose to part ways.

It’s essential to ascertain how both parties wish to communicate a departure to fans and followers, especially in digital media channels. Is there a formal desire to ‘transfer’ fans to the organization? If so, to whom? Will the employee continue to be an unofficial ambassador, or should ties be severed completely?

Ask these questions at the onset of the program – as with any communications venture, never engage without having an exit strategy in hand. In some cases, you may choose to refrain from entering at all.

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 Mike McDougall will address how to co-manage corporate and personal brands during Ragan's "Communicating Your Company Story" conference on October 4 at Southwest Airlines' headquarters in Dallas.