You can’t fake culture
Do you know why some companies are performing better in the crisis than others? And do you know why those same companies will emerge from the crisis in an even healthier position than before? It’s because they have strong cultures.
It is about having a vision, a belief system, an attitude and a worldview that is shared by the entire company. More than a simple guideline, it is a set of values. When a company has a strong culture, everyone in that organization not only supports decisions made by the CEO – but could have made the same decision in his or her place. In our digitalised, open-sourced society the culture is the brand. You cannot fake it.
Some of our clients have the strongest cultures of all. I have to mention Apple, because it’s such a great example. Thanks to the vision of Steve Jobs, Apple has a culture of creativity and innovation. ‘Think different’ was far more than an advertising slogan. It went to the heart of a way of thinking that has transformed the company. By thinking different, Apple shrugged off the notion that it was a mere computer maker and embraced the idea that it was a provider of tools for creative people. The result, of course, was iTunes, the iPod – and later the iPhone. These were radical new departures for Apple, but they were perfectly in tune with its culture.
Apple is well known for the loyalty it engenders among consumers. Needless to say, its employees are equally evangelical. When you go to an Apple store, you can tell the staff love working there. Why? Because a strong culture attracts the best employees. And when the economy crumbles, you want those people by your side.
So how do you build a strong company culture? For one thing, it takes time. You can’t just bolt it on. When you start a company, the culture is already taking root. In fact, very often, company cultures are created by strong leaders. The system may stay in place long after that person has left, but usually it can be traced back to a single inspiring figure.
At TBWA our culture is based on Disruption, which is all about questioning conventions in order to find a new path. But when we organise Disruption exercises (we call them ‘Disruption Days’) for our clients, we do not ask them to change their cultures. In fact, we ask them to look deep within their cultures and identify their key points of difference, a vision and belief-system that sets them apart, makes them likeable or creates a campfire. In this way, we can unlock untapped potential. Companies often tell us that they have ‘found themselves’ after going through the Disruption process. It’s a liberating experience for them.
Take Kraft, who we recently invited to attend a Disruption Day when the company was reviewing the strategy for its Tassimo hot beverage maker. We transformed our Berlin office into an apartment, with a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, a kid’s room. We staged Tassimo‘s reality. The convention we identified was that every hot beverage system had a similar positioning, which could be summed up as “the moment”. In other words, the machines delivered a single cup of coffee that the recipient then savored – alone. Our insight was that Tassimo was more about sharing. It delivers many different beverages, including tea and hot chocolate, so there’s something for everyone. Everybody gets what they want. It has a campfire appeal, with people gathering around it make their favorite drink. This led directly to the brand message: “Together is better.” Now Tassimo is building a culture of togetherness that will have an impact on many aspects of its behavior.
You can’t tell the world a company stands for one thing if its employees know that, internally, that isn’t the case. Employees have blogs now – or friends with blogs. The corporate world has become transparent. As I mentioned at the start: the culture has become the brand.
That’s why TBWA aspires to being more than an advertising agency. I like to think that through our work we contribute to our clients’ company cultures. That’s why our relationship with them usually remains strong for so many years: we have played a role in the creation of their culture and our very own. In that way, we help to provide them and ourselves with a sustainable future.
By Ulrich Proeschel
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