Is the hybrid model the future of work?

Hybrid working. The popularity of this term may have skyrocketed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but make no mistake – this is an inescapable future for the vast majority of companies across the globe. Let’s take a look at hybrid working at-a-glance… 

But just because it’s unavoidable doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. On the contrary, the growing trend towards some configuration of hybrid work model offers a lot of big benefits for businesses of all shapes and sizes, including:

Reduced running costs

With people coming into work on staggered schedules and businesses no longer needing to have all hands on deck at all times, this means there is less need to spend on extensive office space. Instead, companies could rent the space they save out to other organisations, or simply reduce the amount they rent to cut down their overheads.

Better work-life balances

A lot of people have benefitted both practically and emotionally from having the opportunity to work from home. They can work more flexibly, and when they finish for the day, there’s no long commute awaiting them. While interaction with coworkers is great for morale and to prevent isolation, many will appreciate the adaptability of a hybrid working model.

Boosted productivity levels

Research has found that many people claim to be more productive when working from home compared to being in the office. If employees have all the tools at their disposal to work remotely, this more comfortable, familiar environment can actually encourage them to work more efficiently.

Wider recruitment opportunities

By employing a hybrid or remote working model in your company, you are no longer restricted to hiring people within the vicinity of your office. Instead you can look farther across the country, or even internationally, to find ideal recruits for your organisation.

Appealing to younger generations

With a large proportion of millennial and Gen Z recruits prioritising benefits like flexibility and better work-life balances over traditional salary-based perks, being able to offer a hybrid working model can appeal to their needs and offer you a competitive edge when recruiting.

Tackling the challenges of hybrid working to marketing teams

Nevertheless, while hybrid working can inspire these benefits and more, it can also introduce a number of new challenges – many of which revolve around communication and organisation.

Now, these are two essential qualities that any effective marketing team must possess. Without them, campaigns become jumbled and chaotic. Assets become inconsistent or become lost in the shuffle. Jobs get duplicated or ignored altogether. And, as a result, your brand identity can take a big hit.

If not organised effectively, a hybrid working model can quickly create this unwanted scenario. With people working separately away from the office multiple days a week, or possibly in perpetuity, it can make it difficult to collaborate on campaigns or projects. And, if left to their own devices, it is possible assets and collateral are produced that contradict your brand’s personality.

This is a situation all marketing teams are keen to avoid. Fortunately, with the right systems and processes in place, it is more than possible for you to reap the benefits of a hybrid environment while avoiding any sleepless nights over the quality and consistency of your brand.

Here are our 6 top tips to help you get started:

Tip #1 – Invest in DAM

First, let’s tackle the potentially major headache of materials going missing, or employees having to send dozens of emails to get their hands on an asset they need. When teams are spread far apart and working disparately, it is easy to forget to send assets over to the people that need them or lose them in an ocean of folders.

To overcome this problem, it is crucial to contain all your assets in one central hub. This is where a DAM (Digital Asset Manager) or equivalent solution is a must-have for any hybrid work setting. You can store an infinite number of assets in this digital space, which can then be filtered, searched for and found by team members across the globe when they need them.

No delays. No lengthy email chains. No lost property. Everything is housed in one place for when it is required. A solid DAM solution will also allow you to assign permissions to users, so they can only access relevant, brand-appropriate materials for their needs, so there is no risk of anything being published that isn’t supposed to due to a misunderstanding.

A DAM-like system is a fundamental tool for effective hybrid working. It enables marketing teams to find all the assets they need in one place, wherever they’re working from at the time.

Tip #2 – Make brand guidelines easily accessible

As well as centralising your brand assets, it’s crucial to do the same with your brand guidelines. Guidelines and style guides in general are crucial for keeping your marketing efforts aligned and consistent across all channels, from social posts and blogs to posters and billboards.

It prevents your teams from second-guessing your brand identity and empowers them to create with confidence. But, if your brand guidelines are solely printed out in a folder somewhere in your office, it isn’t much use for your employees working from home.

So, it is critical that these guidelines are housed in one central, accessible online location. Your remote employees can then always refer back to them when creating materials regardless of where they are, meaning there’s no risk of going off message.

Tip #3 – Establish clear communication channels

Nothing can create chaos in a marketing team like not knowing who is on a job, or who they should contact for updates. Whether it’s a designer in need of copy, or a marketing coordinator waiting for assets to set a campaign in motion, if people are out of the loop, it can cause costly delays and derail productivity (particularly if there are time differences involved).

With this in mind, it is important to establish points of contact for everyone, be it project managers, creative directors or others, who can coordinate messages and prevent any long-winded, convoluted email chains among various team members. If you work with an agency or other freelancers, this also ensures that any contact with them is streamlined and consistent, so that any work or amends aren’t missed or duplicated.

Leveraging effective communication tools like Slack, Zoom, Trello, Asana and the many others available on the market can also be highly beneficial. These help keep everyone in touch over the course of a campaign or project, ensuring nothing is overlooked as a result of people not being in the same vicinity.

Tip #4 – Keep briefs focused and available

Successful briefs succinctly translate the goals, purpose and intentions of a project to the relevant team members, forming the foundations for inspired creative thinking. If they contain an excessive amount of detail, are lacking key information, or are simply written in a confusing way, this will lead your remote workers down problematic paths.

To prevent this, establish a clear, consistent template for creative briefs, refining it over time where necessary, to ensure that your disparate workers always receive the ideal level of detail to produce high-quality work. This will help guarantee that work reaches the proofing/approval stages in a strong position, without the need for constant supervision or check-ins.

Tip #5 – Digitise proofing and approval workflows

Proofing and signing-off completed work can be a wearisome process even with everyone working in the office at once. If an asset is constantly going back-and-forth between designers or agencies and the relevant marketing managers, this can quickly push campaigns back hours, days, or even weeks.

Digitising these processes can cut down these waits significantly, and help work get through regardless of where everyone involved is based. Online collaboration tools mean that everyone who needs to check an asset can see and input amends in real-time to the recipient, so they can all be made in one motion, and then be instantly approved for use in the required campaign.

At its heart, this is about making a previously manual, tedious process into something more dynamic and efficient with the right digital proofing and approval workflows.

Tip #6 – Have a centralised campaign planner

When you have deadlines to meet, it is helpful if everyone involved is aware of this information. So, giving your remote workers access to a digital, centralised campaign planner can give them total clarity on what assets need to be supplied and when. They can then structure their days around these priorities, so nothing is overlooked.

For the best results, we’d recommend a campaign planning tool that enables you to attach briefs, tag marketing materials, and manage specific folders for each project. This will give you total oversight and clarity from start to finish, regardless of whether your teams are working from their desks or are at home.

Embrace hybrid working without hurting your brand

Now it has gained a greater foothold across the globe, the hybrid working model is here to stay. With more and more professionals appreciating the flexibility that this approach offers, it is crucial that everyone, including marketing teams, identify ways to make these models work without compromising on the integrity and strength of their brand.

We hope that our tips will enable you to embrace this model with no repercussions to your brand identity. It will take some getting used to, but with the right tools in place to keep communication and organisation at a high level regardless of people’s working environment, you can really start to feel the benefits of a hybrid approach.

Managing a brand in a hybrid workplace?

Digitise your brand assets, guidelines and more. Keep everything in one central place and give teams access to everything they need, wherever they are in the world. Sounds ideal doesn’t it?

Discover the world of BAM. 

When your brand is accessible to consumers across the globe, it can become an overwhelming task to ensure that your marketing comes across as it was intended. Without a translation process, you risk undermining any attempt to instil trust and loyalty between consumers and your brand.

If your brand wants to be truly global, it needs to speak in many languages and adapt to the cultural norms of many different countries.

Brand translation blunders

Relying on literal translations of names and marketing taglines may seem like the most obvious pitfall in a global campaign rollout. But you’d be surprised at just how many brands have fallen victim to some embarrassing marketing faux pas as a result. In no particular order, here are 8 of the biggest mistakes to learn from:

#1 Canned and frozen foods company, The Jolly Green Giant, has been a friendly face in the US and the UK since the 1960s. However, when the brand was translated in Arabic, their beloved mascot inadvertently became the “Intimidating Green Ogre”.

#2 KFC’s long-standing “finger-licking good” tagline became much less appetising when it was directly translated into Chinese as “eat your fingers off”.

#3 In Italy, the quintessentially British gin and tonic didn’t sound so refreshing after a major translation fail by Schweppes… “gin and toilet water” anyone?

#4 Pepsi is another example of a big brand translation blunder. Its tagline, “Pepsi brings you back to life” became terrifyingly literal in Chinese, translating as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave”.

#5 Parker spelt out the obvious when they tried to tell the Mexican market that their new ballpoint pens “won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you”. By confusing the Spanish for ‘embarrass’ with ‘embarzar’, they ended up reassuring audiences that their pens “won’t leak in your pocket and impregnate you.”

#6 Without a basic knowledge of Portugese Brazilian colloquialisms, Ford made the mistake of launching the Ford Pinto – ‘pinto’ being a local slang term meaning ‘tiny male genitals’.

#7 Coors is another brand that didn’t account for colloquialisms when its slogan, “Turn It Loose,” translated into Spanish as an informal term for having diarrhoea.

#8 Paxam, an Iranian consumer goods company, marketed their laundry soap in English speaking markets using the Farsi word for “snow,” resulting in shelves of packs labelled “Barf Soap.”

Translate the message, not just the words

Despite the numerous examples above, all it takes is a simple check by a native or fluent speaker to avoid an embarrassing, not to mention costly, mistake. However, this doesn’t guarantee that your brand won’t be lost in translation — even if your messaging is correct from a linguistic point of view, it can still fall flat and lifeless as a marketing campaign.

Most often, a basic translation will lack the humour, emotion or catchiness created in the original creative. This highlights the importance of understanding what makes the campaign resonate with local audiences and how to capture it in local dialects. 

We’ve already had a list of brands who have got translation horribly wrong, so to balance things out, here are some success stories:

Haribo

For years, confectionery brand Haribo has run its undoubtedly catchy jingle with the line ‘Kids and grownups love it so, the happy world of Haribo’. Retaining meaning is one thing, but ensuring that the tagline also hits the right beats in a memorable jingle presents a host of new challenges. Despite this, Haribo has managed to balance consistency and catchiness across numerous markets.

In Germany, for example, where the direct translation sounds odd and clunky alongside the music, the slogan was adapted to “Haribo macht Kinder froh, und Erwachsene ebenso”, meaning “Haribo makes children happy, and grownups too”. Not only does this roll-off the tongue better for German-speaking audiences, but it fits the tune perfectly. This meticulous consistency means that the brand sounds and feels the same wherever its products are being advertised.

Hawes and Curtis

In an article for Marketing Week, Simon Kinsey, Commercial Director at TranslateMedia, shared some insight on the differences between translating brand tone of voice in UK and German markets, using shirt makers, Hawes and Curtis as an example. 

“Germans expect greater formality in tone and they value seriousness far more than the Brits. In the UK it’s culturally important not to seem stuffy or over formal, and people are mainly obsessed with dressing in a way that’s appropriate for the occasion”.

These cultural nuances can be seen in the differences between product descriptions for each market. On the company’s German site, the product descriptions highlight ‘precision engineering’ and ‘excellent workmanship’, whereas on the UK site, there is more of a focus on shirts being ‘fashionable’ and ‘effortless’. 

By picking up on these subtle cultural differences between UK and German consumers, Hawes and Curtis are able to address which selling points resonate best for each audience.

Starbucks

Translation isn’t all about copy. Your brand’s visual language also needs to be understood as intended and accommodate local cultural nuances.

For Starbucks launching in Saudi Arabia back in 1992, this meant the iconic Siren was removed from their logo — instead, just her crown remained floating on the waves. The logo has remained the same since, despite the original Siren logo being present in more liberal neighbouring states.

For any brand launching in a new market, it’s important to consider and understand how cultural sensitivities can change the meaning of both written and visual elements of your communications.

Top tips for effective brand translation

Hire a native speaker who is also fluent in marketing

A reliable translator is essential for making sure that your message is understood, and for avoiding any embarrassing miscommunications. But to be sure that your campaign can make an impact, linguistic skills need to be combined with marketing expertise.

Understand cultural nuances 

Relationships between brands and consumers are built on emotional connections. These are best achieved when a campaign is able to tap into culturally relevant insights that resonate with your audience.

Avoid using niche turns of phrase

Colloquialisms are notoriously difficult to translate. For example, using phrases like ‘raining cats and dogs’ might be a common term in the UK but is likely to set your campaign up for confusion in any other market.

Use culturally relevant images

Imagery is its own language and will take on a different meaning in different cultural contexts. What may be striking and powerful in one country, may come across as insulting or insensitive in another. This is where research and local knowledge is invaluable.

Your brand is what defines the way your company is perceived by audiences across the globe. It is the result of countless hours of research, strategy, creative and design processes, and it applies to everything your brand says and does. In other words, it’s more than just your logo and tagline.

As your company’s greatest consumer-facing asset, your external brand is at the heart of your marketing department, guarded closely by brand guidelines and strict approvals. But although they are the gatekeepers of your brand, your marketing team are not the only employees who need it.

How are internal branding and external branding connected?

It may be used in different ways and in different contexts, external and internal branding is more connected than you might think.

It’s your internal, or employer, brand that brings your employees together under the same company values and attracts the right talent to your business. But in today’s marketing landscape, it’s more important than ever to have an external brand that aligns with how your company operates internally. If employees don’t know what your brand stands for it will be more difficult to represent your company’s true image to customers.

Similarly, employees need to hear the same core values and company messaging as consumers, but in a way that’s relevant to them. Being clear about your brand’s voice, philosophy, and goals is the best way to make sure that your employees and customers are all on the same page. 

To prevent any brand misuse or ‘rogue’ materials from slipping through the net, both your internal and external branding needs to be understood by everyone in your company. 

But with thousands of employees and customers in different markets across the globe, this is no small task. Using the right tools and the right techniques, you can help your whole company get the best from your brand while staying safe in the knowledge that it will be used correctly and with consistency. Here’s how:

Keep a live and up-to-date brand guidelines hub

A brand is a living, breathing and ever-evolving thing. It needs to grow alongside your company as your business develops.

In the fast-paced world of marketing, it’s vital to keep everyone up-to-date with the latest version of your guidelines. With hybrid models and home working becoming the new normal, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your teams know exactly where to find the latest guidelines and have access to them from any location.

To prevent employees from getting lost among the various folders and documents containing the latest assets, use a live brand guidelines hub to store the most recent version of everything your teams need in one location.

Make your brand guidelines part of your onboarding

Aligning themselves with your brand guidelines is essential for new starters to become part of your brand and start embodying your company’s purpose and core values. 

Brand guideline training should be a key part of their onboarding process. New starters should be taken through the relevant information in your guidelines with an explanation of how they will be implemented in their day-to-day work.

Help employees stay in the know

As well as educating new hires on where to access relevant guidelines, and how to use them, a digitised process can be used to help keep your existing employees up-to-date with correct and relevant materials. 

With a digital brand guidelines hub, it’s much easier to create and share resource packs for recurring questions, notify employees about updates and more.

In addition to creating a live hub for everything ‘your brand’, facilitating regular training and Q&A sessions in person gives employees the chance to clear up anything that’s unclear and provide essential feedback to make your brand even better.

Bring your internal brand to life for employees

As we mentioned earlier, your internal brand should be a priority alongside your external brand.

Producing internal campaigns to the same standard that you would if you were communicating to an external audience will help instil trust, loyalty and a sense of pride in your employees.

Give teams access to relevant assets only

For a global company with thousands of employees rolling out campaigns in different markets, there will be countless assets and marketing materials in circulation at any one time.

To help teams spend more time producing ROI boosting campaigns, and less time searching for the relevant materials for their audiences, streamline your DAM system to create customised views that only give teams access to the assets they need.

Learn from mistakes

Even with watertight brand guidelines, the occasional instance of misuse can slip through the net of approvals.

If and when something does go wrong, it’s important to have debrief sessions to find out why. This is not to name and shame anyone, but to help your whole team learn from real examples.

Celebrate the wins

Just as important as reviewing mistakes, is showing praise for what went right. Keeping communication open and honest will foster a sense of teamwork and help employees understand the greater impact of their day-to-day work.

Making remote and hybrid workers part of the team 

With the popular uptake of hybrid working, or many employees choosing to stay working remotely post lockdown, bringing teams together isn’t as easy as calling an all-company meeting. 

Even if staff are working in different locations, languages and time zones, they still need to be working together.

If your employer brand and day-to-day practices neglect those who aren’t in the office, there can be a disconnect between what employees take from your company’s core values and what it actually stands for.

Aligning internal and external branding creates a ‘one company’ approach that brings teams together with the same sense of purpose and one clear direction. After COVID-19, companies need to be doing more to keep all employees in the know, recognise their contributions, ask for and listen to feedback, and give them the tools they need to succeed from home and in the office.

Give everyone room to be creative

Letting non-specialist team members loose on your brand can be daunting. But when you know your teams are clear on your brand guidelines and have an easy way to access them, anyone has the potential to create market-ready work.

For an extra layer of assurance, digitised approvals processes help you stay in control of sign-off and notified of any changes post-approval.

Remind employees that they are the brand

Your employees have the power to shape the future success of your company. Creating, sharing and promoting your company values internally (via your employer brand) will help employees feel valued and driven to succeed in their roles.To take this a step further, using your brand to create employee advocacy programs is a great way to allow them to actively contribute to your marketing efforts. With BAM by Papirfly™ you already have everything you need to bring your brand to life and give your teams the freedom to make it the best it can be with features like: streamlined approvals, flexible templates, customised DAM system.

Discover more ways to boost your company’s employer brand potential in the Papirfly Knowledge hub.