Crafting a Compelling Brand Narrative Sharpening Your Competitive

Crafting a Compelling Brand Narrative Sharpening Your Competitive Edge Neville Billimoria, SVP/Chief Advocacy Officer Mission Fed

“Ask for Money, Get Advice. Ask for Advice, Get Money” Introductions Pair up with someone at your table and quickly (5 minutes total) interview them. Find out their name, organization, their role, one cause they are passionate about Be prepared to introduce them to the people at your table (GO!)

Introduction Cont. What we just did was… A. Invest & build some social capital in one another and create some connections and cardio-graphics

All’s Well that BEGINS Well Setting Intentions… Craft your brand narrative Effectively engage, connect and resonate to amplify your results Polish up your brand promise with purpose

Leveraging Your Social Capital What parts of your story resonate with whom and why - How to leverage values alignment in your strategic partnering and with key stakeholders -Why getting your branding and messaging right could be the difference that makes a difference

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. ~Albert Einstein

On Brand

Brand as “THE ONLY THING OF REAL IMPORTANCE THAT LEADERS DO IS TO CREATE AND MANAGE CULTURE. ” —EDGAR SCHEIN, PROF. MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

What is “Brand”? Shortcut to Decision-making Reputation Trust

First, Debunking Some Myths

Branding is External (Marketing) Branding begins Internally (Culture)

Brand is about facts. Brand is all about feelings.

Strategy is about planning. Effective strategy is about “design thinking. ”

DESIGN THINKING

Design thinking is an analytic and creative process that engages individuals and groups in opportunities to experiment, create and prototype models, gather feedback, and redesign.

Implementation Inspiration Design Stages Ideation & Innovation

Leadership is based on a power position. Leadership is a personal choice and is empowered by the group.

Evolving from an Information Ego-System…

…to a Knowledge Eco-System

Hierarchical structures effectively reflect how work gets done in organizations. 21 st Century work reflects nothing of the sort.

Formal and Informal Systems Formal Systems Informal Systems

Plans and reports are how work gets done. Work and change happens through the interactions of individuals.

In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships …more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions. ~Margaret Wheatley

“Train the Trainer” is the most effective means of scaling learning. Identifying and engaging key social influencers can be more effective.

Success is only measured by results. Don’t underestimate the power of intangibles.

Just because you can’t count it, doesn’t mean it is not important… “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted. ” -Albert Einstein, the father of modern physics “An organization’s intangible assets" represent more than 75% of its strategic value” -- Kaplan and Norton the duo that developed the Balanced Scorecard and the Godfathers of the most widely adopted performance management framework in use today

Strategy is the most important factor in your success.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. ~Peter Drucker

On storytelling WINNING THE STORY WARS

The Greatest Story Ever Told… YOURS! A great storyteller The right audience Brand resonance- Values alignment

History of Storytelling. The Universal Communications Tool Our Cultural DNA Oral Tradition- Survival of the Fittest Story Broadcast Era- Survival of the Richest Digitoral Era- Back to Survival of the Fittest with a decidedly different inflection

Spend Shift Thrift based society (post depression) Conspicuous Consumption Conscious Consumption and Conscious Capitalism (post 2008) Generators of Value not just Extractors of Value A Values Revolution

What is Your Story? Beyond Inadequacy Marketing (Freud’s nephew Bernays) Create Anxiety Introduce your Brand as a Solution Leave the broken marketing language of the past behind! Toward Empowerment Marketing (Maslow) Wholeness, Perfection, Justice, Richness, Simplicity, Beauty, Truth, Uniqueness, Playfulness

The Hero’s Journey The Hero (is not You its your audience) The Mentor (that is your brand) The Brand Gift (makes the hero’s journey possible) “And the moral of the story is…” (your brand values) Vision, Mission & Values Be Authentic- Live your Story!

5 Ways to Optimize Brand Storytelling Make it matter: Why should your audience care? Incorporate story elements in your brand narrative: How does your story empower your hero? Humanize it: Data and numbers have little meaning without context. Articulate how your brand is making a tangible difference in the lives of people Get Real: Does your story successfully pass the test for being authentic and genuine? Make it visual: Telling your story with video or an info-graphic can make a big difference.

The value of values

“What good is sight if you have no vision” – Helen Keller

Values Alignment “Vision” reflection and refraction on value stream that seems to hold true for any pairing of people, teams, organizations or cultures as we strive to help others see better… Use as an illuminating optic for who we partner with as well as share this nuanced work with those we aspire to help “Who you know defines WHAT you know” – Dr. Alan Daly

Values Clarity Are your individuals, team and organization self- aware of their own value system? Your Mission/Reason for Being This values clarity becomes the first lens for decision making about who to hire, invest time with, collaborate with, take risks with, etc.

Values Alignment + If a shared value system or at least shared core beliefs then partnership, collective intelligence, social capital optimization are all a matter of investing in the right structure and process to unearth that latent potential. - If there is values mal-alignment the long term prognosis for sustainable growth and shared success is limited, no matter what contract or covenant is created to “protect interests”

Value Proposition Ideally, the sum of the parts of the pairing, creates new and synergistic opportunities that would not exist if the individual entities approached this by themselves. Identifying the core competency of each actor’s unique offering (gift) and combining these creates opportunities that could not exist for the market or to fill the particular need

The Value of Values This values work (intangible as it might seem) is Mission Critical Wrongly understood, it is the cause of both personal and business partnership failures (divorce, dissolution, disgust) Rightly applied it leads to radical collaboration creating something new and wondrous (delight, dynamite)!

Brand Membership Employees

Understanding the Employee Culture Belief System 1. 2. 3. Mission Fed sets the core cultural values by which we live and work. Our employees rely on those values to guide behavior, achieve member service excellence, and create The Mission Fed experience. Our members feel and feed off of those values. Each employee interaction facilitates their Mission Fed experience. The experience as a whole creates a human connection with the Mission Fed culture, and loyalty to the Mission Fed brand. Brand Membership Employees

Your Mission if you choose to accept it… Brand as CULTURE C A D Strategy by DESIGN THINKING B g as Marketin STORYTELLING

Applying This Success Formula DT x RC = TI Design Thinking x Radical Collaboration = Transformative Impact American Marketing Association Cause Conference 2014, @ USD

Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have. ~Margaret Mead

From Our Family to Yours… Happy Holidays! Love, Neville