Mind your brand, especially in these challenging times

Rough and tough days aren't forecast to end soon. Yet you still have a company to run with employees afraid for their jobs, customers down the line feeling the same blues, a bottom line to meet and perhaps, simply the goal to still be standing come sundown.

In the midst of this you're supposed to care about what all this is doing to your brand?

Absolutely.

Your brand is more than you. It's more than the logo and color palette, your uniforms or an office manual. It's also the people who work for you. How are they feeling about what you're doing? Are they frightened? Are they constricted? Are they just trying to get through the day with their jobs? Fear can be a healthy motivator in the form of competition. Fear is a wicked handcuff when people feel left out and are waiting for a shoe to drop.

The great brands are the ones that ride out the bad times as well as the good. They are the communicators. They are the ones who let everyone know what's happening and why.

If there are layoffs to be done, they do it professionally and respectfully. The last thing you want out on the street is an angry former employee denigrating you and your brand.

It's a harmful effect you don't need. So maybe twittering to someone "they're fired" is a bad idea; perhaps an informal mass e-mail isn't quite the right way either. Think about your brand. Think about the effects of what you do will do to it.

Also, think about this: You've downsized and done it the wrong way. How does this affect those left standing? You think they're going to feel a great loyalty to the brand when they just saw their friend get an email telling him or her to clear out their desk. No way. They're waiting for the other shoe to drop and in the meantime, trying to figure out where they're heading next. So instead of working for you and helping your brand remain strong, they're sending out resumes hoping to get on someplace new.

But wait. Suppose you do it the right way. You've done what had to be done. You now have a smaller force, but one that is ready for the challenge. One that knows it's a rough time, probably about to get rougher. But they're with you.

This may be the most defining moment of your brand's history. This time of looking into the abysmal depths of darkness, running in the red, ready to give up and file chapter something or another. Now is the time to invigorate your brand with new ideas, new inventions, new ways of communicating. That doesn't mean more expensive; it means a better way of doing things. It might be the innovative idea that takes your brand in a completely different direction, but a more fruitful one, with more long-term opportunities than you ever imagined.

Now is the time when great brands to emerge. I used to work for The Richards Group, a branding agency in Dallas, Texas, that long ago became the agency for a company mired in losses, year after year, down, down, down. They decided to take a chance on our agency and a new marketing campaign. One that took them out of TV and put them on the radio. Only the radio. (Those radio spots with Tom Bodett for Motel 6 are still running today, many of which I even wrote, in what is arguably one of the best radio campaigns ever.)

Zig while others zag. Think differently. Be smarter. Innovate. Try something new. But remember your brand and what the world is doing to it.

To some, branding is like winning in sports: When everything's in the plus column, branding is magical, it's superlative, it's everyone singing from the same page of the hymnal. Everyone's making money, the brand's cast in a positive light. To paraphrase the youth of today, "it's all good."

But then tough times hit. Fingers get pointed, backs get stabbed, and of course, the rule of all rules gets enacted, cut the budget for advertising/marketing/branding.

I say, don't cut it. Re-distribute it. Put it to better use. Do something that years from now causes you to reflect and say, "'08 and '09 were tough years, but we're sure better and stronger for it."

Dave Longfield grew up in Reno. He recently moved back from Dallas where he was a creative director at The Richards Group and worked on Corona Beer, Motel 6 and The Home Depot. He is now working with Octane Studios. Contact him at david@octanestudios.com.