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The Role of the Intranet in Brand Knowledge Management
By Craig DeLarge
June 2002
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| Craig DeLarge |
Increasingly, the brand management community is realizing that
it is folly to focus exclusively on the management of brand values
and identity outside the firm without due attention to the advocacy
and communication of those same values and identity inside the firm.
Indeed, internal brand management will increasingly be a source
of competitive advantage in the future.
There are a number of well-known, and not-so-well-known, strategies
and tactics that relate to internal brand management, of these I
believe the corporate/brand intranet is an under-leveraged brand
management tool.
The corporate intranet/extranet has great potential as a brand
knowledge management tool. When strategically developed and branded,
it can enable:
The effective and efficient warehousing, retrieval, and classification
of brand assets (explicit codified knowledge).
The creation of a community of internal and external brand champions
who understand and teach one another how to 'live the brand' (tacit
knowledge).
The productive application of brand knowledge which includes
corporate/brand vision, strategy, competitive positioning, tactical
plans, performance metrics, customer and employee stories and
myths, successes and learnings, and sensory assets. (When considering
the issue of brand knowledge management, we often get overwhelmed
with trying to collect everything, rather than focusing on capturing
and applying those aspects of brand knowledge pertaining to core
competencies and key processes that give the corporation/brand
competitive advantage.)
Brand knowledge and its corresponding assets are soft and their
contribution difficult to quantify in a business environment that
increasingly wants the return on every investment quantified. I
urge brand managers looking to leverage their intranet/extranet
as brand knowledge tools to employ an exercise that estimates the
savings and revenues attributable to their intranet/extranet based
on activities avoided or innovations generated.
Finally, let's not forget that this vision cannot work in a culture
whose management and members do not value the seeking and sharing
of knowledge. Just as a body without a soul is dead, an intranet
without a supportive culture is dead.
I am convinced—although I don't see it often enough—that
corporate/brand intranets and extranets, when leveraged as brand
knowledge management tools, are capable of assisting brand managers
in the creation and maintenance of an organizational and team environment
where members understand the brand values, vision, strategies, tactics
and behaviors that differentiate the corporation/brand in the marketplace.
When this "brand" understanding becomes a part of the
organizational and team culture, it translates into easy and naturally
satisfying stakeholder experiences that make for competitive advantage
in the marketplace.
Craig DeLarge is the Marketing Manager of
eBusiness at
Johnson & Johnson
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