Becoming a cHamPion BRanD: - APCO Worldwide

Becoming a cHamPion BRanD:
Differentiating Yourself in the Marketplace
We need to create a new way of thinking about corporate brands that is more
enduring.
We are now in an environment where the idea of reputation has limited utility and
meaning. When stakeholders can mobilize opinion and allies in minutes, reputation
as we know it is temporal. Companies that rely on the idea of reputation alone in
building their corporate brand are going to lose ground.
After all, we’ve all watched companies whose good reputations have come crashing
down to earth when faced with bad facts. For many companies there appears to be
cyclicality to their reputation, while other companies are more resistant to downturns.
What is the difference between them?
We’ve deduced some important trends when looking at our clients and over a
decade of research. There are qualities that separate the merely good corporate
brands from the Champion Brands—qualities that make them more resistant to bad
news, better able to adapt to changing market conditions and better able to innovate
and succeed.
So the question we set out to answer was whether or not there was a methodology,
both for research as well as for implementation, that could yield better results—
an approach to creating Champion Brands that would be more meaningful, less
mercurial and better suited to this new environment.
buildiNG A ChAmPiON brANd: The FOur A’S
We developed a new way to measure, understand and ultimately create corporate
value by creating Champion Brands. Our model is based on what we call the “Four
A’s.” Think of it as a credit rating for your brand—are you a single A-, double A-, triple
A- or quadruple A-rated brand?
1. The first A is Alignment: This is the extent to which you are aligned with the
expectations of your stakeholders. We can identify the most persuasive ways
to close the gap between current perceptions and stakeholder expectations.
It’s the way almost all corporate and reputation research is done, and it is a
critical first step—without it you can’t progress through the other stages. But it
isn’t sufficient.
2. The second A is Attachment: Most companies understand the need to
create an emotional connection between their products or services and their
customers. But few companies understand the need to create an emotional
connection between stakeholders and the company itself. Companies are
brands too, and stakeholders need to feel an attachment to, and have a
relationship with, the company.
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