Making a racket about brand protection

A large part of what I do is ensuring that our wholesale accounts represent us in the way we would like, not the way they might think is alright.

You hand over your baby to the babysitter with lots of instructions and it comes back wearing strange clothes and covered in paint (the wrong pantone I might add.) Being a brand evangelist, it’s been a thorn in my side for a while. How do you get your accounts to care as much as you do? What’s more, even if they do care, how do you ensure that their standards match yours?

The only way, I’ve noted, is to make those on the frontline feel as though the brand is akin to their own. We did this with a very large client recently, spending time spoiling and training up the Visual Merchandisers in the store. We spent a morning taking them through all the work we’ve been doing on our brand, enthusing them with all the exciting bits (celebs, press and events) and then going into detail with our brand guidelines, what they are and why they matter.

This followed with some on-site visits to our newest locations to show them how we merchandise and dress our own stores. A slap up lunch, few bottles of wine and some plush goody bags later, they were part of the family and we had spent some quality time together.

Or some might say we spent all day laying it on thick, making them feel guilty if they didn’t look after us….and just like family it seems to be working!