How to Turn High-Profile Employees Into Brand Ambassadors

Kaplan Mobray has a great article in the latest edition of AdAge.com. Here are the highlights:

To stand out forward-thinking Fortune 500 companies are trying a new tack: They're tapping into the personal brands of their most inspiring public executives. Motivational speakers at companies such as Deloitte, Nike and Pitney Bowes have become their company's most coveted brand ambassadors.

Personal brands can bring to life an organization's culture as no print or digital image can. Bottom line: There's a new and largely untapped resource within corporate walls that can help companies build brand equity, and it's your employees -- specifically those employees with individual personal brands.

Consumers increasingly base their feelings about a company on what they know about its people, rather than what an ad agency's creative team can portray.

Hiring employees who have established personal brands will help companies immediately inherit value and relevance in a crowded market and may lead to quicker results in meeting growth objectives.

It's those employees and their speaking engagements and other ways of reaching out that can help make corporate brands real, trusted and relevant in the minds of prospective recruits and customers.

Promote from the inside out. The company e-mail newsletter or intranet is an effective way to find interesting facts about the people who sit right next to you. Use these vehicles to promote employees' outside interests and accolades, creating tons of internal buzz that will have your company's brand soaring and your people proud to wear your logo.

Tweet your people right. Social-networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are powerful tools through which companies can discover and promote their personal brands.

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