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Rebuilding the Nortel Brand
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Over the last six months, I’ve been talking primarily about our technology vision and strategy for rebuilding Nortel into the great company it has historically been. A complementary effort to that is making sure we get our story out. So, I thought it might be interesting for you to hear from my colleague Lauren Flaherty, Nortel’s Chief Marketing Officer, who’s been working aggressively to rebuild Nortel’s brand.
I’ll be posting my next entry this coming Wednesday.
Lauren Flaherty
There's been lots of enthusiastic discussion on this blog and others about what Nortel should be doing and recently some of it has concerned marketing specifically, so John invited me to jump into the dialogue and share some views of my own.
Nortel, like any company who has faced challenges, is a lightning rod for commentary and naysayers. But if you take a moment to consider the not-so-distant past you'll see we have some pretty terrific icons who have been down the same path … Apple, HP and IBM (where I worked in marketing for 25 years through highs and lows), to name a few.
And like them, we're not only working on strengthening all our business fundamentals, we're also working like mad to rebuild Nortel's image and make the brand a powerful tool for driving revenue growth. Our work in this area goes well beyond a "snappy marketing slogan" but I will take that description as a compliment because breaking through the noise these days is half the challenge. Consider this: the typical professional adult in North America receives over 650 advertising messages per day!
Most of the blog entries on this site zoom in on the technology debate (and that's great). But I'd like to detour that dialogue and share some thoughts about what it takes to create real market pull and a strong brand in today's market.
Like most professions, marketing suffers trends so let's talk about what's "out". Volume is out. Today is about delivering a relevant message with precision; in fact, dishing out more of what's not welcome to begin with is a negative, not a positive, and marketplace reaction can be punishing. Chest-pounding is out. Today's customers are the smartest any marketer has ever tried to connect with. Claims without strong customer advocacy behind them are becoming increasingly hollow; today's buyers have access to independent, detailed analysis 24/7. That's a good thing; it keeps us all on our toes. Lastly, corporate branding is out. You used to be able to build your reputation and shape perceptions through corporate image television and print advertising. Not anymore. The traditional tools of building brands, especially for BtoB companies, are quickly becoming passé. Today, be prepared to engage and demonstrate your wares and then let your advocates (customers most importantly) do the talking. Check out this piece on Forbes.com. It underscores how the conventional wisdom about brands and how to build them is changing.
So, how is all of this influencing what we're doing at Nortel? Based on what we know about how people feel about Nortel we are foremost concerned about reconnecting with customers and potential customers. Not with some massive air assault but through deep, local engagement. We are cherry-picking select metropolitan markets (a few examples are below) that are key to our growth worldwide and we are reintroducing and educating those markets about who we are and how we can help them. The strategy is centered around an execution model that is built on weaving our sellers, channel partners, the media, and our customers together to build advocacy for the brand.
The anthem, or campaign theme, we use is "Hyperconnectivity". Why did we select it? Two reasons: first, because we found it hit a powerful chord across our key targets; second, because it helped our brand promise of Business Made Simple resonate in a more meaningful manner. All of us are beginning to see the impact of a society that is becoming hyperconnected. At MIT a few weeks back, we were with the team who leads the MIT Media Lab and talking about what happens when over 1 trillion devices are connected to the network. It's mind-blowing. But for businesses (Carrier and Enterprise), this era of hyperconnectivity poses both staggering challenges and breathtaking opportunities. Putting Nortel in the center of this dialogue is critical. It helps make us relevant again. It helps people see us as a player in the future of the communications industry, which is exactly what we want. Most importantly, this vision, coupled with the technology and capabilities we can deliver, will genuinely help our customers achieve the possible..
Do we have it all right yet? Not by a long shot, but we've made great progress quickly and we're fine-tuning constantly, as we should. Perhaps what I find most encouraging is that there are a lot of people out there who would like to see Nortel back at its fighting weight. The marketplace loves competition and we're just fine about the fact that we have to play like a challenger.
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[…] First off, thanks to the GaZiLlion Nortel employees who read our Ad Campaign post yesterday - it seems like it’s making the viral rounds at company. What prompted the post - other than that wonderful “unfortunate ad placement”, was the fact that the marketing machine at Nortel often missed the mark. Campaigns like “Business without Boundaries” undermines the value of the products, and focusses attention on the negative aspects of the business. I just caught up with Nortel CTO John Roese’s blog, it seems that the company’s Chief Marketing Officer feels the same way. In a guest post, Lauren Flaherty writes Do we have it all right yet? Not by a long shot, but we’ve made great progress quickly and we’re fine-tuning constantly, as we should. Perhaps what I find most encouraging is that there are a lot of people out there who would like to see Nortel back at its fighting weight. […]
July 25th, 2007 at 8:12 am from SensoryMetrics: re-inventing the User eXperience » Nortel Pride Day: Rebuilding the brand