In a dynamic global marketplace, maintaining a consistent and captivating brand image across diverse regions and channels is no easy feat. For countless global enterprises, brand management poses different challenges depending on size, industry, and the complexity of the organisation – which only increases as a brand grows.
Navigating the specific challenges each brand faces is significantly reduced when teams that need to govern and drive the brand – whether in a corporate, employer branding, or marketing operations capacity – know that the strategy they put in place is supported by the tools their enterprise chooses to invest in as part of their techstack ecosystem.
In this article, we’ll see how some of the world’s most recognisable brands have done that with an all-in-one brand management platform.
Understanding brand management challenges
For a brand and its people to engage and grow a loyal customer base, there are several things to consider. These include having an identity that is clear and consistent, a business that is seen as responsive to trends and events, and communications that resonate with customer expectations – exceeding them whenever possible. Not considering these elements, and the technology that will help you achieve this, will make it less likely customers see you as a standout choice in a sea of competitors.
Business challenges will not go away – it’s what makes work life exciting. Yet when fragmented branding strategies, ineffective approval processes, and difficulties in upholding brand compliance become the norm for so long, hitting growth goals becomes unlikely.
Building an on-brand culture through an all-in-one centralised brand management platform turns what were once formidable barriers into problems of the past, and offers solutions for key areas for global enterprises to unleash the brilliance of their brand and their people into the world. It can do this in several ways, depending on the most pressing business priority.
Global brand consistency delivered by all teams
Unilever
With no central system in place for coordinating brand assets, staff at Unilever were spending significant amounts of time reviewing designs by local teams. At the same time, these local teams were spending valuable time and resources creating their assets from scratch, then waiting for them to be signed off. Many were also often relying on external agencies for their assets, eating into budgets and further slowing them down.
Unilever’s leadership gained a birds-eye view of how assets were being used globally, ensuring brand consistency and message alignment. Custom workflows and approval processes were easily established for edge-cases, improving communication and collaboration between central and local teams. This streamlined approach empowered local markets to deliver Unilever’s purpose-driven brand message effectively and efficiently – eliminated the need for external creative agencies, reducing costs further.
Helly Hansen
Brand management for Helly Hansen was significantly improved in several ways. By offering a seamless global brand management solution that combined online brand guidelines, Digital Asset Management (DAM), and online templates, Papirfly ensured that Helly Hansen could maintain a consistent brand voice and image across all markets and stakeholders. This allowed them to secure one brand identity, essential for a consumer brand with a massive distribution and sales network like Helly Hansen.
Serving as a one-stop-shop for all marketing needs, Papirfly’s platform ensured the brand could be served as intended, catering to marketing teams, employees, branded stores, resellers, and local offices to activate it across every channel. This centralised approach increased efficiency and reduced the time wasted on manual processes, ensuring that tight deadlines for seasonal campaigns were met effortlessly.
Consistent employer branding on a global scale
IBM
Before implementing Papirfly, IBM faced the challenge of ensuring its brand identity was communicated consistently across its 65 regions. Each region had its own marketing and recruitment teams, leading to variations in branding and marketing efforts. With Papirfly’s centralised hub for asset standards, guidelines, and design templates, IBM was able to enforce unbreakable brand guidelines and ensure that all marketing and recruitment materials were on-brand. This allowed IBM to present a unified and modern employer brand, appealing to younger generations of potential employees worldwide.
Vodafone
It was a similar story with another huge brand – Vodafone – achieving total brand clarity, improving consistency in employer brand communications, and reducing the need for central approvals. Our platform enabled the company to digitise its branding efforts, appeal to tech-savvy young employees, and focus on delivering an authentic and engaging message about working at Vodafone. By transforming from a “telco to techno” brand, Vodafone aligned its historic telecoms business with modern technological capabilities, improving its ability to attract quality hires and support its evolving digital business. The partnership with Papirfly allowed Vodafone to continue exploring further digital transformation opportunities to enhance talent attraction and skills development in the future – which we’re excited to continue doing to this day.
Combining central marketing and local execution
BMW
Utilising seamless automation and centralisation of responsibilities, BMW Northern Europe empowered a more efficient and powerful execution of the brand for local dealers. This streamlined communication and enabled better coordination between the regional office and the local dealers, decreasing time to market and avoiding bottlenecks.
With our all-in-one brand management platform providing a digital foundation to access and adapt marketing collateral from – used by all stakeholders including creative agencies, dealers, and employees – complete accessibility and 100% consistency in all marketing efforts was possible. It was felt that local tailoring while maintaining connection with the core brand and corporate strategies was an essential for a brand of BMW’s profile.
Thon Hotels
Thon Hotels streamlined and structured its marketing operations in a more efficient way with Papirfly’s platform, achieving brand consistency, and improving internal communications. The platform’s ease of use and capabilities impressed both leaders and hotel staff, resulting in a more professional and effective brand presence across all hotels.
Before implementing Papirfly, Thon Hotels faced challenges in coordinating its brand identity across 70 sites and dealing with inefficient inter-departmental communication. The core marketing team struggled to implement new brand guidelines, and hotels often created ad-hoc assets with inconsistent results. Empowering hotel staff to create on-brand materials quickly while centralising all activities and automatically implementing the new brand guidelines across all sites, inconsistencies and errors were eliminated.
Stay ahead with game-changing brand management
Papirfly’s comprehensive platform offers a suite of essential products that work seamlessly together, and can integrate with the wider ecosystem of your enterprise. Our product suits allows you to:
- One home for your brand
Educate your people on brand guidelines. Control how your brand is used. Build an on-brand culture for your teams from one online portal.
- Digital Asset Management
Manage all files in a powerful DAM. Share assets with ease across your business. Provide one single source of truth to your entire enterprise. - On-brand design templates
Create unlimited enterprise assets. Activate your brand using on-brand design templates. Unleash your brand across all channels, in any language. - Campaign execution tools
Plan and execute campaigns with complete control. Collaborate with efficient workflows, built for your needs. Increase agility for teams everywhere. - Enterprise-grade analytics
Measure campaign success and brand adoption. Optimise brand strategy for better results. Gain insights from a user, team, region and global level. - Seamless integrations
Integrate Papirfly with your tech stack. Give every team a seamless user experience when using our platform as part of your ecosystem.
Empower your people to unleash your brand
In a fast-paced, interconnected world, global brands cannot afford to compromise on brand management. Papirfly has proven to be the beacon of hope, guiding leading brands towards brilliance. Join the ranks of Unilever, Helly Hansen, Vodafone, IBM, BMW, Thon Hotels, and over 600 more global brands, and work with Papirfly to transform your brand management abilities – as we innovate the future of brand management excellence together.
