The Brand Implementation Process from a Project Manager’s Perspective
Brand implementation is a complex process — but when it’s executed properly across your locations, it yields immediate operational, financial, and emotional dividends for your organization and your customers.
If you have anywhere from a few dozen to a few thousand locations, your brand is reflected in multiple assets ranging from interior and exterior signage to lighting systems and the physical condition of your facilities themselves. Each of these assets serves a meaningful role in how your customers, employees, and partners perceive you. When the time comes to refresh them or add to them due to growth, it’s essential to ensure consistency throughout your footprint.
When organizations handle this internally, it can quickly become overwhelming. Even if you have a facilities team or a marketing team managing your brand assets, multiple locations means multiple opportunities for things to go wrong. These teams also have more on their plates than just working with brand assets. Because of this, updates or new installs might be handled on a one-off basis or without the higher-level perspective that’s needed to achieve consistency and timely completion.
At Stratus, we take a different approach. When it comes to the brand implementation process, it’s not only about getting the job done — it’s also about planning it efficiently from the start, coordinating our resources and those of our clients, implementing brand assets with unmatched accuracy, and reporting our progress and results. No one will understand if a program is successful by taking a one-piece-at-a-time approach — brand implementation must start at 50,000 feet and be planned from there. Here, we’ll explore our approach from this level.
How We Tackle Brand Implementation Programs
We Learn About Your Brand and What You’re Looking to Achieve
Every physical asset, no matter how large or small, reflects your brand. That’s why it’s important for our team to understand what the brand represents and what you’re looking to communicate with your update or new asset implementation. Signage, the appearance of your facility interiors and exteriors, lighting systems, and more are all customizable to reflect that message or feeling that you want to impart.
By understanding your brand, we can provide more tailored, strategic recommendations. For example, if your organization needs to replace signage as part of a larger rebrand, we can provide recommendations that support what the new brand is looking to communicate. Different materials, backgrounds, approaches to mounting, lighting, and other elements can dramatically influence how a sign looks and functions. Armed with this deeper level knowledge of your brand, we can align our resources and recommendations with your goals and maximize the impact of the program.
Helping Payless Get More: Stratus has built a long-term partnership with Payless ShoeSource, providing consultative recommendations and identifying numerous cost savings across thousands of locations. Learn more about our work for them here.
We Execute the Brand Implementation at the Program Level
As mentioned earlier, tackling the brand implementation process one location or asset group at a time is not only inefficient from a cost and time perspective, but it also has a negative impact on your brand. By working at the program level, all project work at individual sites is planned, coordinated, and executed according to a set schedule — dramatically compressing the amount of time needed to implement your new or updated brand assets. Planning at this level also allows us to determine whether we’ll be working in a closed or open store environment and take steps to reduce our impact on your operations and sales.
While our team handles coordination and resource planning, we’ll be working closely with our nationwide network of more than 4,000 field partners. These are contractors, vendors, and suppliers in all 50 states and Canada that execute the work at your sites. Each has a tenured history with our company and has proven themselves reliable time and time again, which is why we entrust this part of the brand implementation process to them. Our project and account managers remain in close communication with them, ensuring that all financial information, project statuses, and other details are gathered and reported back to you consistently through our various reporting tools.
A Golden Outcome for the Golden Arches: When McDonald’s launched its Experience of the Future program, the Stratus team managed hundreds of restaurant remodels efficiently. Learn how we went above and beyond.
We See It Through from Start to the Finish
While the start of the brand implementation process revolves around proper planning via program management, your brand assets will undergo an extensive journey. From design and manufacturing to temporary storage and eventual routing for installation, there are a number of details and steps that have to be managed to keep your program on track — all while ensuring the brand assets are tracked and protected at every step. At Stratus, we not only help you at the start of the program but also in the middle and at the end with our warehousing, logistics, and installation capabilities.
When assets are ready for temporary storage, we’ll centralize their collection from all vendors and, if needed, will kit them so they’re bundled and ready. All assets are safely stored, freeing up space at your site. When the assets are ready, we’ll transport them to their final destination with white glove delivery — keeping them safe at all times and ensuring accurate implementation at each site in the program. At no point will you wonder where your brand assets are or who’s handling them.
Taking It the Last Mile, Every Time: When you partner with our team for your brand implementation needs, we’ll see your program through to the end — while adding the beautiful finish you deserve. Learn more about our installation services.
Entrust the Brand Implementation Process to Us
Stratus has been supporting organizations across the U.S. and Canada with their brand implementation needs for decades. With a complete portfolio of brand capabilities and a relentless commitment to upholding your brand integrity, we’re the team you’ve been looking for to support your success.
Get in touch with us today to discuss your next brand program.