Branding a Project

There are three major categories of communication within a Communication Management Plan – mandatory, informational and marketing. Your project will probably always have mandatory communications and you will want to add information communication as well if the project is large enough. Marketing communication is where the creativity comes in. Many projects have no need for marketing communication. However, if your project is controversial or if it requires culture change to be successful, you should focus on marketing communications.

Branding is a more sophisticated form of marketing communication. The purpose of branding a project is to associate an emotion or a feeling with your project. This is exactly what marketing people try to do when they brand a product. For instance, The Coca-Cola Company hopes that you feel good about its products and that you will choose its products from a crowded store shelf because you like the image and emotion associated with it. Maybe it works. If you throw a party and you provide a cooler full of Cokes and Sprites, you probably feel pretty good about the image you are portraying. On the other hand, if you stock a cooler full of ‘no-name’ cola, you might feel a little embarrassed. If you do, the branding process has had an effect on you.

Branding a project has the same connotation. The purpose of branding a project is to associate a positive image and emotion when a person hears of your project. This is not something most projects need to be concerned about. However, ask yourself some questions regarding the impact your project will have on the organization.

• Does it impact a large number of people or maybe the entire company?
• Will it require a culture change or a change in the way people do their job?
• Will your project make people nervous? For instance, will it result in efficiencies so that less people are required to do the same function?

These are the types of projects that would be candidates for branding.

All large projects have an emotion associated with them. If you don’t do anything, this emotion is generally negative. It is just the nature of people that they seem to think that changes are bad. Branding helps you proactively build the image you want to portray rather than getting stuck with one. Of course, branding takes time, so you also need to have a project with a long time horizon.

There are activities that a project can perform to help with the branding campaign. If possible, you should consider meeting with your marketing department to gather more ideas and get help with how to establish a brand and how to successfully implement it. Examples of activities include:

• Establish a positive project name
  For instance, a project called MarketForce, probably gives more of a positive image than one called Marketing Process Improvement Initiative. You can build a positive image with an easy to remember acronym as well.
• Establish an image / logo
  The project should have an image or logo associated with it. The image must be positive and it should be included on all communication coming from the team.
• Distribute branded “trinkets”
  Put your project name or logo on pins, t-shirts, pencils, Frisbees, etc. You can reward people with a token that contains the project logo when they do something good.
• Hold face-to-face meetings
  Spend the time to see as many people as possible in person-to-person meetings or small group meetings, especially at the beginning of the project. No one wants to hear all the information about an important project on email. It cheapens the project.

Of course all of this is contingent on also including a steady stream of informational content as well. A steady stream of information, combined with the positive feeling of the project branding will help the project be successful and should help overcome any negative perceptions about the project.

Why is Branding Important?

Branding a project has definite bottom-line value when it is time to implement your solution. If your project will change how people do their jobs, they may quickly turn negative toward your project. When people are negative, it is much harder to successfully implement your solution. On the other hand, if people have a positive feeling about your project (or at least neutral) it is much easier for you to implement your solution.

That is the value of branding. You recognize that you can influence how people perceive your project and you can make a conscious effort to establish a positive image. This will result in your project implementation being more successful, more quickly, than it will if people have a negative perceptions. The small effort you take to establish a positive brand will more than pay off with a more successful implementation.