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BOOKEND
Are you sitting on A goldmine
of marketing potential?
Davide Ravasi, professor of strategy and entrepreneurship
at UCL School of Management, has researched how
engaging with an organisation's history can help brands
define their future direction.
What did your research uncover?
My co-authors (Violina Rindova,
University of Southern California, LA,
and Ileana Stigliani, Imperial College
Business School) and I conducted
research in four corporate museums
at Alessi, Alfa Romeo, Ducati
and Piaggio.
In each case, employees used
historical artefacts to support
work relating to areas such as
innovation, communications and HR.
Well-established organisations are
sitting on a goldmine of marketing
potential. Examining your company’s
past in terms of branding and
product can be key when rebuilding
internal and external understanding
of organisational identity, legitimising
marketing initiatives or creating
narratives to increase product appeal.
How does that work in practice?
HR teams might use historical
anecdotes to explain the identity
and culture of the organisation to
new joiners. For
instance, showing the
staggering number of
prototypes that Alessi
produced before
launching some
of its most iconic
products conveys
the importance of
realising the original idea of the
designer accurately. Alessi delayed
one product by two years until it could
find a kettle whistle that reproduced
the tune the designer Richard Sapper
wanted (the sound of barges on the
Rhine). Similarly, pharmaceutical
company Zambon redesigned its
employee-evaluation criteria based
on notes and categories that its
former leader developed in the 1950s.
Is there one ‘correct’ interpretation
of a company’s history?
A company’s history lends itself to
multiple interpretations, but there
are limits. When presenting their
Piaggio’s 1952 all-woman operated taxi-scooter
histories, companies such as BMW
and Daimler-Benz don’t conceal
their ties with the Nazi regime, for
example; they simply couldn’t. But
Alessi can gloss over the flowery
chiselled trays that constituted the
bulk of its production in the late
1960s (and would clash with the
modern design of current products).
Not all members of an
organisation interpret its past in the
same way. But a company history
should be considered a reservoir of
valuable symbolic resources that can
be drawn upon to support present
day action, and should be viewed
as an asset.
The drawbacks of organisational transparency
Trust in big corporations is at an all-time low, but is 'transparency' always they answer?
T
rust in big business is
at an all-time low, so
firms like Edelman tell
us (assuming we can
trust their data). A
common riposte is – “more
transparency”. But what
does that mean?
There are clearly common
sense limits as to what facts
can be made transparent.
Swiss banks aside, few
firms reliant on client
confidentiality or creative
R&D can be expected
to be fully transparent.
Even if businesses laid bare
their entire corporate souls,
few of us have the time – or
inclination – to look.
But the bigger problem
is that a brand strategy of
transparency can make us
even more suspicious. Like
a magician rolling up their
sleeves, businesses can
reveal any set of facts but
we may still wonder what
we can’t see. Trust, after all,
doesn’t stem from our ability
to know everything but in
how comfortable we are in
not knowing everything. If
your partner tells you they’re
visiting a friend for the
evening and reassures you
they’re not up to mischief
by proposing you install a
tracking device in their jacket,
it’s unlikely to engender trust.
In the same vein, Aristotle
argued that justice is a failed
form of friendship. Not to say
that justice is bad, just that
friendship is better – and
involves fewer lawyers. Overt
transparency is similarly
a failed form of trust, not
the royal road towards
it. Of course, the level of
trust consumers have in a
brand usually correlate with
sales. But the correlation
between how trusted – and
how trustworthy a brand is,
is zero, as VW, Tesco and
Carillion have shown.
Transparency initiatives
are a logical option for
businesses who’ve been
caught red handed. But for
most, there’s no need to jump
on the bandwagon. It’s better
to simply act in trustworthy
ways. That starts with culture,
principles and internal
policies. Consumer trust is
the happy by-product.
March – May 2019
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