The establishment of a Project Management Office (PMO) or Vendor Management Office (VMO) is often conducted when a high-value practice or methodology is needed across the organization. It is the standardization of these business processes that yields better quality, quicker time to market, and reduction of risk.

Similarly, a Brand Management Office (BMO) ensures the standardization of your brand’s message, usage, and delivery in a world where brand value means everything and brand risk can be catastrophic. Whether you choose to call it your Marketing/Corporate Communications Office, Brand Steering Committee, or Branding Council – the naming is up to you, but the importance of such an organizational structure cannot be understated.

Organizations with strong brands command higher profit margins and sustainable competitive advantage. The quantification of brand value can have important implications to a company’s financials.

So what does a BMO do?

The BMO champions a coherent and consistent brand identity, both inside and outside the organization. The objective is to retain and expand on brand equity for the purposes of increasing the bottom line.

• account for:
  • the assets, liabilities, and activities that have an impact on brand
  • the resources at your disposal
• prepare the organization by:
  • facilitating communications between all stakeholders, so that everyone is “on the same page”
  • handling risk management, addressing potential social media crisis scenarios
  • communicating updates to social policies within the company
• engage customers on several levels:
  • product/service: assisting in the buying decision making process
  • support: addressing questions, concerns
  • company purpose: participating in something meaningful, beyond profits
• measure:
  • social metrics against ROI objectives
  • improvements to social ROI by developing and extending methodologies
• learn:
  • by capturing “best practices” and “lessons learned” for continuous improvement
  • by removing unintended obstacles to brand performance

Who owns the BMO?

A brand is expressed by every product, service, employee and customer, but Marketing Communications (Marcom) guides the conversation. They are the prime candidates to act as facilitators within a diverse group of stakeholders.

In the Marketing Mix (price, place, product, and promotion), Marcom is the “promotion“. And if promotion is the “voice” of the brand, it always helps if it’s clear and articulate. A lot goes into that voice – input from Sales, Service, Legal, Finance, and Marketing. And increasingly, IT is playing a complementary role in gesticulation. Far from just “hand waving“, IT provides the tools and expertise to convey the message far and wide through analytics, social software and other emerging technologies.

How is a BMO structured?

Selecting the right BMO for the right organization depends on corporate culture.

“The key to using culture to improve performance lies in matching culture or attributes to organizational goals.”^[1] In the Four Organizational Culture Types, corporate culture is categorized as:

Mapping the left axis of corporate culture to the degree of BMO control provides the following 3×3 matrix of possibilities:

The bottom axis shows that there are essentially three types of BMOs:

Advisory: This type of BMO exercises the least amount of control across the organization, providing support when and where needed. This can take the form of guidelines, policies, case studies, and consulting.

Compliance:  The compliance type of BMO provides the same services as the advisory BMO, except that checkpoints are put in place to ensure that the guidelines are followed. Education may play a more critical role, with certification as a requirement.

Directive: This BMO goes beyond advice and compliance by actually managing or performing the required work.

There are situations where a Directive approach may be necessary, such as negative publicity gone viral.

Determining criteria for success

Success will look different for every organization, with brand value being the primary metric. Reaching success will take time, talent, and tenacity, as the factors that influence brand are rapidly changing. But for those who choose to take a systematic approach to managing their brand’s value, the rewards should be great.

Looking forward to your opinions on the following in the comments:

• Should brands always be managed by marketing?
• Do you think that corporate culture plays a role in how social media is used both internally/externally? If so, how?
• What BMO activities do you think would yield the highest impact or value?

1. ^[1] Four Organizational Culture Types by Bruce M. Tharp ↩