“We’re super excited that a start-up brand and identity that we all love is now being recognized by creative peers from all over the world,” said creative director Dana Gonsalves, who led the design team.

View the case study.

Wendy Blattner will be sharing the stage with Heidi S. DeWyngaert, President & Chief Lending Officer, Bankwell Financial Group, in a discussion about the value of disruptive branding and marketing strategies that enable community banks to go toe-to-toe with their bigger rivals.

Hope to see you there!

The 2014 Financial Services Marketing & Innovation Symposium
When: September 18, 2014
Where: Crowne Plaza Times Square, New York City

To learn more or register for this event, visit Source Media Conferences

Institutional investors have the luxury of listening to a CEO firsthand and asking questions in analyst meetings and in one-on-one calls. But it’s almost impossible for individual investors to get the whole picture, especially if they’re concerned about the company’s impact on the larger world and its financial implications. Whether for reasons of conscience or the growing realization that bad citizenship hurts the bottom line, solid evidence exists that investors are taking increased note of corporate behavior. A 2009 white paper on the subject shows the trend clearly. Coauthored by the Dutch investment firm Robeco and the corporate consultant Booz & Company, this study found that “responsible investments” have been growing at an accelerated rate, climbing an average of 22 percent a year between 2003 and 2007. (This compared to flat growth in traditional investments in the same period.)

The report, however, also identified key stumbling blocks to responsible investing, chief among them the lack of any real consensus on what a responsible investment actually is. With no universally accepted standards and definitions, investors have precious little to go on. It’s up to them to create their own standards for separating the wheat from the chaff — for distinguishing sustainable, cutting-edge companies from those that merely claim to be responsible players.

For traditional measures, investors can certainly rely on the mandatory 10-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to get a clear snapshot of a company’s financial performance year to year. There is, however, no counterpart for gauging nonfinancial performance. To address this lack, many companies now produce corporate responsibility (CR) reports. But most of these documents are, in the end, not very helpful investment tools. There is no requirement that their results be audited or their content be measured against consistent benchmarks. And there is no standard way to gauge the effect of nonfinancial factors on the bottom line.

Integration Evolution
How, then, can we truly measure the long-term impact of a company’s behavior or judge the risks and/or ethical implications of a given investment? While the task remains difficult, the answer might be the “integrated report” — an annual document that combines both financial and nonfinancial data, creating clear connections between social and environmental choices, their impacts, and performance.

In 2009, integrated reporting took a big step forward with the collaboration of two major advocacy groups, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the United Kingdom’s Prince of Wales’s Accounting for Sustainability Project. A meeting of investors, diplomats, standards experts, accounting firms, and major companies established a group, the International Integrated Reporting Committee, that would create universal standards and models, as well as a global governance structure to enforce consistency worldwide. Other developments also began to accelerate the trend, including a South African mandate that all companies in the country produce integrated annual reports by 2011.

In the United States, meanwhile, the SEC released guidelines requiring companies to assess and disclose the business effect of climate-change laws and regulations. This includes taking into consideration financially measurable consequences, such as the lower demand for products that are potentially damaging to the environment and the cost of adhering to environmentally progressive international accords. The directives had been called for by some large investors, including the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the nation’s second-largest public pension fund. They represent a significant step in the drive to tie environmental impacts to a company’s bottom line.

As with most trends, some countries are well ahead of the curve, including Denmark, the first to make integrated annual reports a national requirement. A prime example of the result is Novo Nordisk’s “triple bottom line” report — a document that, in the company’s words, “ensures that decision making balances financial growth with corporate responsibility, short-term gains with long-term profitability, and shareholder return with other stakeholder interests.”

Getting on Board
It’s likely that companies everywhere will find themselves under increasing pressure to explain the impact of their decisions on the environment, society, and the bottom line. This means that integrated reporting will increasingly become the norm, so the time to begin preparing to issue this new kind of corporate report is now. Before starting, however, realize that an integrated annual report is a big undertaking. Above everything, it requires a deep commitment to the underlying goal of integrated reporting: becoming, in deed and not just word, part of a sustainable global economic model.

Where, then, to begin? Here are some basic first steps:

Bring people together. Call a joint meeting of annual report, CR (or CSR), and investor relations teams. Integrated annuals demand a great deal of cooperation and coordination. This initial meeting will establish relationships and put the subject on everyone’s radar.

See what works. Contact companies that are already doing integrated reports. Study their efforts and get as much information as you can from their team leaders. At the same time, stay abreast of developing standards and techniques — particularly by following the progress of the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC).

Get buy-in from above. As with any major corporate undertaking, commitment must start from the top. Make an effort to engage and educate upper-level management. Their approval, after all, is critical to getting the resources you’ll need.

Do what you can now. While it’s unlikely you’ll accomplish an integrated annual report in the first year, there’s plenty of preliminary work to do, so get started. Create a team to get up to speed with GRI guidelines, and begin to align your current CR reporting with GRI standards. Start to explore ways to connect the current annual and CR reports. This means asking a broad range of questions, such as: How can we connect corporate strategy to emerging global trends and dynamics? How can we correlate sustainability issues to their financial implications? And how can we connect remuneration incentives to risk and organizational behaviors? As you ask these questions, start building a prototype, outlining possible structure and content. Also, draw up a rough timeline, so that your team has something to work against. Finally, while you plan, begin to rewrite the basics of your company’s story with impacts in mind. Instead of simply saying, “Sales are up by X percent,” create a holistic picture that incorporates impacts and solutions, ethical issues, and your record on diversity and employee engagement.

Promote internally. Employees take pride in companies that are committed to responsible, sustainable behavior. Integrated reporting is proof positive of where your company stands. It’s a solid, concrete platform that can elevate the corporate brand.

Corporate reporting is ultimately about metrics — about numerical data that help investors gauge potential rewards and possible risks. What has changed is that investors seek (and will increasingly demand) new metrics, particularly as the costs of irresponsible corporate behavior come to light. Investors, in short, want more. Corporate citizenship has become more than a buzzword. And proof of good citizenship has become fundamental to investment decisions that are both ethical and sound. It’s likely the best way to provide that proof is the integrated annual report. As a standardized, quantifiable document of true performance in the marketplace, it is good for shareholders, good for the brand, and good for the world we will leave to our children.

As seen in Corporate Responsibility Magazine

Steve Mignogna is a Principal at Sequel Studio, a branding and marketing, and communications consultancy based in New York.

Let’s assume that brand = the promise of a differentiated experience, and image = the external perceptions. How does one impact the other? Brand experiences trigger either positive or negative perceptions amongst audiences. That means that every interaction, be they in-person, online, or offline communications, can build on or diminish a company’s reputation.

Here are the five key actions a company can take to bolster its brand and image that will build trust in its products/services as well as its culture.

ONE: Look at brands from the outside in.
So what if you think your company’s products and services are great? That’s not what counts. What matters is how others perceive your company’s brand. Decisions should be based on an honest assessment of what the marketplace thinks.

To look at a company from the outside in requires external audience research that spans qualitative, quantitative, and social media insights from customers, prospects, and analysts. Then, fold in frontline sales and support staff insights, competitive intelligence, and perception surveys to achieve a well-rounded view of how outbound messages and actions are being received. Couple this external view with a brand experience audit, and you have a comprehensive picture of both sides of the relationship.

An example of a company that took this approach is HP. At a time when competitors like Dell were looking at improving internal efficiencies and managing operating costs, HP made the PC personal again based on the insight that customers wanted the ability to humanize and personalize what has become a utilitarian digital tool.

TWO: Empower your people to drive your brand.
With many companies cutting jobs, it’s easy to forget that people are the key to delivering real and perceived value. Make sure your people are prepared to deliver the right brand experience. Give them the right tools and messages in helping them understand what’s important to the customer and, ultimately, what’s in it for them.

For NFP (formerly National Financial Partners), a financial services company built through the acquisition of more than 150 insurance, benefits, and wealth management firms, this meant gaining the insight and trust of internal audiences in reshaping a more unified story.

In addition to providing sessions for listening, senior executives used the opportunity to help employees understand the value of brand and the potential strength of a more aligned organization. Once the new brand platform was developed, a road map that consisted of presentation and communications tools, sales FAQs, CEO webcasts, and in-person roadshows set a path forward toward empowering the field force to own and activate the new NFP brand promise.

THREE: Deliver the right insight, at the right time, to the right people.
With companies shedding personnel and acquiring or inheriting new capabilities and businesses, it’s become more challenging to retain and grow customer relationships. To succeed, it’s critical to know your customers and deliver messages that are relevant to them.

The days of “spray and pray” campaign delivery are over. Targeted messages have more cost and customer efficacy than a blind mass-market approach.

For Boost Mobile, a unit of Sprint Nextel, building loyalty with independent retail dealers was about knowing that they were looking for a mobile carrier to be a partner, not just a provider. By giving independent retail dealers timely access to their own store performance, increased efficiencies around customer transactions, and educational experiences that helped them build their business, Boost became more valuable to their bottom line, not just the dealers’ product line-ups.

FOUR: Change perception by doing good things.
For your brand to win, it’s essential that your company get ahead of the issues — and avoid letting analysts and the media define your brand story. As with anything else, actions speak louder than words. The best way to succeed is to demonstrate that your company truly looks out for constituents’ interests. Public relations and marketing aren’t band-aids; companies need to “live it.”

Corporate reputation and social responsibility initiatives enhanced perceptions for brands like JetBlue and Bank of America. In February 2007, when passengers were left for hours on the tarmac, most airlines took a beating. JetBlue, anticipating Congressional action, introduced a passengers bill-of-rights.

During the financial crisis of 2008, with Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Washington Mutual disappearing almost overnight, customer fear, uncertainty and doubt was at an all-time high. Brands like Bank of America, with its Clarity Commitment program, launched in April 2009, demystified the lending process in an effort to empower the consumer to make informed decisions. With its Assurance Program in early 2009, Hyundai took meaningful steps to respond to customers' concerns in considering a big-ticket purchase as well as accrue positive associations for its brand.

FIVE: Leverage quick wins. Whether you’re improving results, or customer service, or righting an environmental wrong, make it clear that your company is serious, not just sitting on its hands. Remember, the narrative about your company is yours to shape. If you hesitate, you lose the moment and leave it to others to shape stories about you.

In 2004, CA (formerly Computer Associates) was in the midst of a criminal investigation for corporate accounting fraud. By the second quarter of the following year, new leadership had been put in place, and the tarnished public image and low employee morale had hit bottom. With solid customer insights and the foundation for a new positioning under way, it would have taken eight to 10 months to move from the idea to a fully realized re-branding program. In the fourth quarter that same year, CA used its biggest annual customer conference as the stage to introduce the new vision for the company, manifested in the new brand platform and a refreshed logo.

Implemented only across the basic business tools (stationery, presentation tools, and the corporate website), this important but incremental step signified a sea change to the existing customer base, the 15,000 employees, and Wall Street and set the tone for a full rollout of internal and external communications milestones throughout the next 12 to 18 months. This represented an unconventional approach to a brand launch but was a necessary step in garnering the right level of positive change in the eyes of key stakeholders that progress was being made.

Although the cloud of financial uncertainty continues to be cause for cost-cutting or worse, business leaders should see these times as a moment of opportunity to align, improve, and grow their business. Those priorities, done well, will provide tremendous possibilities to gain marketshare and enhance stakeholder confidence in your business and your brand.

John Nishimoto is creative director and practice leader for brand development at Sequel, a branding and marketing consultancy based in New York. An executive with a wealth of branding experience, he is responsible for turning client objectives into strong platforms and strategies for creative execution.

But while these digital devices have made it far easier to communicate, they fail in one critical respect. They have not made it any easier to decide what to say, or how to say it clearly. Another way to put it: More brands and more people are mumbling their messages in more ways than ever — but mumbling more or mumbling louder is no way to get noticed. Let me shrink this dynamic down to a more personal level for a moment. Imagine this: You’re at a cocktail party. You fall into conversation with someone who asks you what your company does — why it’s different from your competitors. Quick now: Do you have a crisp, ready reply? Here’s another question: How many of your colleagues would have one? If the answers are “no” and “not many,” listen up: Before you can communicate on a mass level, you need to be clear on an individual basis.

Hopefully, these truths are self-evident. Your company’s productivity and effectiveness depend on a common understanding of goals, customers, capabilities and responsibilities. That’s been the case for a long time. What’s become more critical, in this age of competing messages, is the mandate to develop and communicate a clear, differentiated brand narrative — the “brand story” that defines exactly what your company stands for.

What complicates the issue is that the “story” cannot be a pure marketing effort. It must paint a clear vision of where the company is headed, based on true intent, and be synchronized with actual company strategy. All too often, the marketing team takes the rap for poor execution when in fact the company proper has failed to take the time to do the critical thinking, get everyone to understand it — or both.

A well-crafted and synchronized story can transform motion into progress. One of the most obvious symptoms of dysfunction is an organization that just spins its wheels. Everyone is working hard, but the brand is going nowhere. This sort of problem happens all too easily. Usually, the culture is misaligned, with employees working furiously to solve isolated problems at the expense of a larger, common goal. A clear brand narrative is essential to solving this problem. It spells out what the company is trying to achieve and articulates the values and behaviors that support the brand.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Five years ago I joined a company called Computer Associates. It was a proud company but a troubled one, too. Both internally and externally, people were confused about what the company simply was. CA needed a brand story, and after a while we came up with one. We looked at the biggest headache IT managers faced: the challenge of managing IT environments that had grown extraordinarily complex. So from that point on, we decided that our aim would be to tame that environment, to unify and simplify IT management. That became our story. And it then enabled employees to make decisions that moved the brand forward.

Perhaps, in the past, a company might have been able to manage without this kind of clarity of purpose, but that’s impossible now. Customers are hearing about your brand from many different sources. Analysts, competitors, media, bloggers — all have plenty to say. Obviously, you can’t control the conversation, but a crisp, clear brand story, told by you, can shape that buzz and influence it. Let’s not forget that your own people are, via social networks, participating in all this chatter, too. They’re talking up the company. It’s critical that they say the right things and say them consistently. Once they do, all that other mumbling the consumers hear won’t be as loud or as clear as the one message that truly matters — your own.

As seen in Adweek

I think not.

For CMOs who take the initiative, these pressures create opportunities. So why not seize these opportunities and turn them to your advantage? There are, in fact, five steps you can take to deliver more value and reshape perception — to gain the respect that your group, and the marketing profession in general, deserve.

ONE: Offer fresh perspective.
CMOs have two distinct advantages over other functional executives. First, they’re hard-wired to see the big picture when others can’t (see A Company and Its CMO: Creating a Marriage That Lasts, Korn Ferry, 2008). Among other traits: They tolerate ambiguity, have no problem thinking outside the box, are able to process large volumes of data and balance long-term strategy with short-term goals. They also tend to be personable, approachable and highly persuasive, which means they can offer convincing long- and short-term market perspective for C-suite peers. What’s more, CMOs have a unique position within the organizational structure. Literally no one understands customers better, or has a clearer vision of how product development, marketing and sales must intersect. Because of this, a CMO can answer questions nobody else can, e.g.:

• Are we meeting the needs of our customers?
• Are we calling on the “right” customers?
• Is our value clearly articulated and differentiated from competitors?
• Are our development efforts focused on issues customers care about most?

If you can answer questions like these, your views will carry more weight. Others in the C-suite will come to you, and your personal brand will rise.

TWO: Clearly quantify marketing’s impact — and challenges.
Marketing is a visible group and, like most organizations, has a mix of things that work well, things that work less well, and things that don’t really work at all. As the marketing leader, your best policy is to provide complete transparency, about both positive and negative aspects of marketing initiatives, using terminology and metrics that are both meaningful and easy to grasp by others in the C-suite. The marketing trade press is full of advice on how to do this, as well as warnings about what measures to avoid. (ROI, for example, is problematic, while ROO — return on objective — is much more easily managed.) By developing a dashboard of metrics that tie to the company’s key objectives — e.g., growth — that is clear, honest and substantive, you will gain respect among your peers as a determined, serious C-suite player.

THREE: Foster alignment across the enterprise.
Marketing also has a unique ability to get people on the same page, something that is crucial to the whole company. Think of each person in the company as a vector, a force capable of affecting outcomes. If all vectors are going in the same direction, then strengths become additive. But if vectors are even slightly out of synch, productivity suffers and effectiveness declines. As a CMO, you can help eliminate silos and build greater alignment. You can ensure that everyone understands customers, knows what the competition is up to, and can envision how to work together to innovate and leverage new opportunities. Meld this understanding into a company-wide mantra, and it’s not hard to see the impact you’ll have: developers focused on real customer needs; products launched and promoted with compelling messages; and a sales team focused on the right customers, armed with the right sales tools.

FOUR: Embrace and drive positive change.
In business, change is inevitable, but for many people it is also one of the hardest things to embrace and leverage. As a CMO, you can use this tendency to your advantage. As a visionary CMO, you are likely to have the desired state clearly in mind — and a better ability than most to vividly paint that future state and its advantages. You can also engage your team to help others bridge the emotional gap between present and future. While change for the sake of change can be stressful, change that addresses where customers are going has a much more positive context. As the executive who understands customers best, a CMO is in position to explain that context and help everyone in the organization move in the right direction.

FIVE: Get an ally with an outside view.
While many executives can confide in their peers, few are as alone (or under more stress) than the executive in charge of marketing. For this reason, successful CMOs often seek outside advisors, people who have been in their shoes before, know how to deal with a changing environment, and are savvy about political issues that arise in dealing with other functional executives. An experienced advisor in your corner, someone with whom you develop close working ties, can offer perspective, collaborate on strategy, and serve as a sounding board on a wide range of issues. If you have an advisor, leverage that relationship to your best advantage. If you don’t have one, consider engaging someone who can serve you in that role.

Steve Mignogna is a Principal at Sequel Studio, a branding and marketing, and communications consultancy based in New York.