It is not uncommon for a company to make significant investment crafting and protecting their brand positioning, identity and messaging strategies. And for good reason. These are fundamental accomplishments that can have tremendous impact across any organization. That’s why the C-Suite and the marketing department make sure they properly dictate brand guidelines and rules, supplying brand-compliant marketing campaigns and collateral materials to those responsible with delivering the brand promise to customers and end users. With those carefully crafted tools, our employees and channel partners are sure to transform into Capt. Flanagans.

Or are they?

While they serve an important role in defining and protecting a brand’s position and identity, brand guidelines and rules handed down from “Corporate” rarely inspire – and more often have the reverse affect. When the people in the trenches aren’t inspired to participate, branding campaigns and materials have a way of becoming an expense line item rather than an asset with an expected return on investment. For brand ambassadorship to really take off, the brand has to connect emotionally with a group of people even more important than the end consumer—the front line employees and channel partners who are charged with bringing the brand alive.