What’s in a name? So begins the cover of corporate brochure of the Certified General Accountants of Ontario. It was the first piece rolled out following our year-long exercise to “capture” the brand of our membership and relate it to employers, clients, peers, the profession and public.
But how did the brand connect with a key “touch point,” the employees of this professional association of accountants? Or in the more likely words of our staff, prior to our efforts at employee engagement and brand championing, “What’s in it for me?”
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A Collective Definition of “Brand” (Wikipedia, captured May 2005) A brand represents the holistic sum of all information about a product, group of products or organization. This symbolic construct typically consists of a name, identifying mark, logo, visual images or symbols or mental concepts, which distinguishes the product or service. It is useful for the marketer to think of this as a set of aligned expectations in the mind of its stakeholders—from its consumers, to its distribution channels, to the people and companies who supply the products and services that make up the brand experience. A brand often carries connotations of a product’s “promise,” the product or service’s point of difference among its competitors that makes it special and unique. Marketers attempt, through a brand, to give a product a “personality” or an “image.” Thus, they hope to “brand,” or burn, the image into the consumer’s mind; that is, associate the image with the product’s quality. |
Our “explicit” brand relates to perceptions of employers, clients and the public towards certified general accountants (CGAs). The “implicit” brand includes areas like simplifying education and business processes and procedures, thereby improving “customer” satisfaction in service and retention.
It’s remarkable the reach and influence our staff of 70 can have on an internal membership of more than 25,000, not to mention thousands of potential students, employers, the public, government, community groups and so on. If identification is muddy, contact with staff difficult, processes and procedures aren’t intuitive and proactive…the negative effects are substantial. Our end “product” is certificating members that are “broadly and deeply competent,” dedicated to “meeting needs by exceeding expectations,” etc., but a significant driver for the brand’s promise includes staff’s day-to-day delivery of customer service.
Capturing the CGA Brand
For 10 months, public affairs, marketing and communication staff worked intensely with our branding agency, first capturing the CGA brand’s values and attributes, then determining a campaign focus. The extensive training in the CGA program of professional studies, plus our members’ relationships with various publics, resulted in identification of these “honest and credible” brand characteristics and values:
- skilled
- knowledgeable
- confident
- adaptable
- approachable
- trustworthy
Next, we updated the CGA brand’s look, feel and communication: new corporate colours (including a “high energy” orange); a revamped corporate identity (logo excepted); and key messages that encapsulated the brand character. A vital component to CGA branding was evolving our focus from “awareness” of the designation to its “relevancy” to the end-users.
The end result was an array of evolved marketing tools, aimed at various publics.
Lunch and Learn about the CGA Brand
An identified challenge was staff having limited knowledge about branding efforts, including historic achievements and recent initiatives. Wanting all employees to embrace and champion the brand as much as the working group, we invited staff to “lunch and learn sessions.” Our goal was for employees to understand the CGA brand, and appreciate the significant role they played in its delivery.
An offsite location, catered lunch and branding paraphernalia—trade show booth, PowerPoint presentation, Flash video—helped transform the 10-year retrospective of our advertising/branding campaigns into an “event.”
First up was our tremendous historical success in profile building, primarily through our innovative advertising campaign, “We’re the name brand for business in Canada.” As one of three Canadian professional accounting designations, we operate in an incredibly competitive environment to attract students to our CGA program of professional studies.
More than 10 years ago we set out to raise public awareness of the CGA designation. Impediments to the communication challenge included a general lack of interest in the accounting profession, as well as a common misconception that the “product leader” was synonymous with the product category. Our opportunity was to establish CGAs as the accountants with the accounting and financial skills that businesses need, by using a creative execution that was unique to the Certified General Accountants of Ontario: its members and their names. At the beginning of our new advertising campaign, unaided awareness of the CGA designation in Ontario was just 27 per cent.
In September 1995, the “name brand” campaign hit television and radio, supported by print inserts in newspapers and magazines. It was tremendously well-received by members, the public and media. The commercials were eye-catching and quirky. We used the surnames of real CGAs to create short storylines, whenever possible using the actual members as “stars.” (If a CGA was uncomfortable in the limelight, staff filled in.) Although “actors” in our TV ads might have appeared a little stiff and awkward, they had huge smiles and appeared friendly and approachable, undercutting the traditional image of stuffy accountants. New TV and radio commercials were introduced every two years. Additionally, in 1999 we took the campaign outside with billboards…just like the TV ads, the first professional accounting association to do so.
Public Embracing of the CGA Brand
Post-campaign launch, awareness of the CGA designation and association rose substantially. Meeting people at industry functions, I’d indicate, “I work at the Certified General Accountants of Ontario.” The usual response, “I love your ads—they’re brilliant!”
Already we’d branded a “personality” for our CGAs: the friendly accountants. Media attention included Strategy magazine, CBC Radio, PR Canada, Marketing Daily, Ad-news Daily and The Lawyer’s Weekly. The director of public affairs was invited to present about our campaign at a Conference Board of Canada symposium. Perhaps the most thrilling recognition was our commercial being “spoofed” on CBC TV’s Air Farce; when comedians parody ads, they’ve made an impact!
The CGA Brand Evolves, to Broaden Its Reach and Influence
In 2001, we transitioned our expensive, full-fledged TV ads to the more cost-effective “closed captioning” option. Interestingly, the Ontario public continues to believe we produce TV commercials: earlier ads embedded the CGA brand in people’s consciousness. By 2004, research results indicated that unaided awareness of the CGA designation had risen to 75 per cent. Aided awareness exceeded 90 per cent.
We played the archived TV commercials at our sessions. Staff laughed appreciatively, called out the names of employees and CGAs, noted changing hair styles and fashions and indicated favourite ads. Seeing the commercials run consecutively emphasized their effectiveness. It was sinking in to employees their role in helping to raise awareness.
Mid-session, we began detailing the more recently identified challenge: employers said they recognized who CGAs were, and those who did know our “brand” liked it a lot…but many didn’t know enough about our members. Hence the reasons for our recent branding exercise: moving the CGA designation from awareness to relevance, from “name brand” to “name your need.”
The CGA brand character defines how our positioning comes to life. The values are those expressed by members and employees in behaviour, character, style, tone and manner. Attributes define the look and feel of all of our communications and culture. In addition to our advertising, the marketing department promotes the brand at career fairs and trade shows, in magazines and through career website banners. We also sponsor relevant events and engage in research. Our CGA brand is “out there,” in as many innovative ways as deemed feasible.
Extending the Explicit Brand into the Workplace
So how did employees fit in as champions of the brand? We indicated they should be proud of their part in “producing” CGAs with such an exemplary brand character. If CGAs were perceived as friendly and approachable, so were staff representatives of the association. Employees worked hard and diligently, fulfilling the needs of CGAs, students, prospective students and the public.
Today’s usual practice is to shorten organizational names into acronyms and initialisms. Although staff were used to saying “CGA” and “CGA Ontario,” we asked them to try to always say the association’s name in full. We emphasized consistency in identification and uniformity in presentation (using our in-house style guide). We shared samples of key messaging, for use in customer relations. Templates were provided for voicemail messages and e-mail signatures, incorporating all of these elements. Finally, we “requested” that staff consider including our new branding tagline at the end of e-mail signature blocks: Certified General Accountants. Name Your Need.
“Make-or-Break” Session Dynamics
The dynamics of the two sessions proved interesting. Despite session one being only two-thirds full, some staff “influencers” quickly voiced their approval of the exercise, signifying other ways to extend the brand, internally or publicly; for example, developing additional templates regarding vacation messages. Quieter staff began offering feedback, too. Enthusiasm was high!
Staff left with a branded-orange trade show bag, containing the corporate brochure; “champion” toolkit on CD-ROM; and a visual identification guide. (The PowerPoint presentation was in the portal for downloading.) We recommended staff use their association bag in public, to help extend the brand. They were invited to come to us for more, for family and friends or when their original bag wore out.
The second session was packed to capacity—with just enough food and seats—substantially larger numbers than had registered. Afterwards, we learned employees from the first group returned to the office and raved about how great was the session…so some staff actually “crashed” number two, which proved equally popular.
Mission Accomplished: Engaged Champions of the CGA Brand
Post-event, presenters received many visits and messages from employees regarding our efforts to “communicate” the brand; the majority updated their voicemail and e-mail signature blocks that day, including incorporating the tagline.
Our multimedia developer sent the favourite e-mail:
“I wanted to thank you for the marcomm presentation yesterday. It was very informative, and I especially enjoyed learning about the history of the brand and what the rational is for the way the brand is being promoted today. I have some marketing background, so understanding how the marketing/communications plan was conceptualized really helps me form a vision for my own work. It will also help in identifying myself as an employee of the Certified General Accountants of Ontario. I used to say, ‘I work for CGA Ontario, but I’m not an accountant.’ Now I can say, ‘I work for the Certified General Accountants of Ontario in the information services department.’
As part of the information services team, we can better serve the needs of all of our ‘clients,’ with this clearer understanding of what the brand really stands for. I must say that the direct mail piece is brilliant; if you have any extra copies I’d love to have one. Thanks again, and the food was great, too!”
Postscript : At the request of the chief executive officer of the Certified General Accountants of Ontario, our multimedia developer demonstrated her personal dedication and vision as a CGA brand champion (thereby serving the needs of her internal clients) by developing templates of HTML signature blocks, which make use of two distinct palettes drawn from our new corporate colours. Each staff member was invited to ask the information services team to download a personalized signature block onto his or her system, one that includes name, position and co-ordinates, plus our logo and tagline, Certified General Accountants: Name Your Need. With each message, staff are delighted to play a further champion role in extending the reach and influence of the CGA brand.
Judy Gombita is manager of communications for the Certified General Accountants of Ontario (http://www.cga-ontario.org) and has been happily involved in all aspects of the association’s recent branding efforts.
The original publication of a shorter version of this article was commissioned for the May/June 2006 issue of the Journal of Employee Communication Management (JECM) magazine, published by Lawrence Ragan Communications, Inc. (http://www.ragan.com). It is shared with members of the Communitelligence portal with the kind permission of JECM’s editor, David R. Murray.
Credit is extended to the following organizations and individuals for their role in the hugely successful advertising and branding efforts of the Certified General Accountants of Ontario. Branding agency: Cundari SFP (formerly Spencer Francey Peters). Brand strategist: Jeannette Hanna; project manager: Kristina Hayes. Advertising agency: Clique Communications. Creative director: Richard Clewes. Media buyer: Media Dimensions. Principal: Diane Webb.
Guest Article By Judy Gombita
