The organizational brand is the flagship of reputation. The quality of products and services, the nature of people and culture, and the proficiency of operations all contribute to the value and values that accrue to the organization’s brand and its reputational health. The consciously designed brand system arranges these and other organizational effects to improve the quality of outcomes that cumulatively affect reputation. To varying degrees, these multiple organizational inputs all contribute to brand-influencing outcomes (experiences), the aggregate of which yield a reputational quotient.

Designing a brand system begins with a healthy respect for the complexity of its programming. Organizational inputs that shape brand reputation are manifold, widely dispersed, and frustratingly unruly. The inputs derive from across the organization such that no single role or function can be expected to fully design or govern them without universal consent or unchallengeable authority. Even then, each individual team member represents an input having unpredictable autonomy, rendering complete control of the brand system difficult.

This raises the question, if every function or role influences brand reputation, can anyone (or any one team) actually control the brand system? The answer, legitimately, is no; however, the organization that deliberately infuses brand consciousness throughout its framework will be in a better position to positively influence or program the more salient inputs to brand reputation. Doing so begins with an understanding of how different brand modes, and the roles and functions associated with them, can appreciably mutate the brand without proper vigilance. Indeed, each brand mode contributes to the development and evolution of the brand and, ultimately, brand reputation.

Brand modes operate with distinct programs of activity, with different parts of the organization contributing instruction sets for the brand. This ecosystem has no discernible boundaries, borders, or delineations; rather, it is a confluence of currents that commingle. In other words, brand modes comprise multiple sources of institutional activity that interconnect, intersect, and ultimately manifest as brand experiences. As a result, as one brand mode influences the brand, other modes simultaneously produce additional brand influences. In so doing, brand modes constantly ebb and flow with consequent oscillating effect on brand reputation.

Although going mostly unnoticed in the background of the organization’s daily cares and concerns, brand modes left unheeded can operate at cross purposes. But with some effort, each brand mode can be nurtured toward favorable reputational outcomes. Understanding the nature and influence of the various brand modes is critical to cultivating each one as a constructive component of the overall brand system.

To that point, each brand mode imparts a unique influence on brand reputation. The institutional mode consists of activities related to the organization’s founding charter and core value proposition. The relational mode involves the organization’s posture toward stakeholders. The commercial mode encompasses the organization’s productive pursuits. The transactional mode entails the numerous, almost uncountable, touchpoints of organizational interactions.

Institutional Mode

How to think of it: The brand’s nucleus. Wellspring of the organization’s value. Instruction set for the organizational society.

All organizations spring from the same intention: Doing something that offers value. Of course, value is subjective and often defies rationality; however, no organization of purpose exists but for the inclination to offer something of value (which implies creating something of value).

The Institutional mode conveys the brand genome, which is based on foundational expertise and a corresponding value proposition. In turn, core expertise traces the outline of organizational culture. Indeed, organizational expertise and capabilities influence the type of talent and skills necessary to create value at scale and achieve long-term success.

Although many diverse skills are required for an organization to function effectively, its core institutional expertise largely determines the DNA of its culture and its operational competence. (One only need to look at the failing U.S. educational system, where in recent decades growth in administrative positions far exceeds growth in the number of actual educators, to understand what happens when core expertise is diluted.)

As the co-partner to value in the brand project, the organization’s values represent formative institutional brand currents, along with companion expressions for vision, mission and purpose (V+VMP). This collection of waypoint principles and beliefs, which guide organizational culture, strategy, decisions and actions, typically (and hopefully) reflect the organization’s authentic character and differentiating operating charter. They stipulate the “who we are, what we do, why we do it” of organizational identity.

The Institutional brand mode is best understood as the master program for the organizational brand, from which individuals can discern the type, tone, and tenor of the entity and what they might expect from its people and operations. Along with facts and figures that fashion a frameset about organizational genus and species, the organization’s expressed beliefs, ideals, and commitments, as well as the manner in which all are presented, cast reputational seeds across other brand modes.

The Institutional mode is the province of brand heritage — the origins and lineage of the organization, including customs, ways, and beliefs that contributed to the development of the brand. They reflect the genesis of the organizational brand, and the corresponding folklore that edifies the brand story. Those operating within this mode shepherd the brand’s evolution while maintaining its ideational underpinnings and safeguarding the integrity of the brand across its various expressions and applications. Once the brand is well established, the Institutional brand mode is largely an exercise of brand management, seasoned with aspects of culture and communications. Another way to think of this mode is that of brand guardianship. In fact, the Institutional mode calls for a certain rigidity with the way brand is expressed, whereas other modes — especially the Commercial mode — seek more flexibility, which can cause brand inconsistency.

Elements of the Institutional mode include:

• Brand identity system

• Differentiated brand position (AKA, value proposition)

• Brand narrative

• Articulated values, vision, mission and purpose

• “Red-thread” storytelling for cultural cohesion

• Messaging framework for internal and external communications

Relational Mode

How to think of it: Establishing the nature of brand culture, relationships and expectations.

The Relational mode orients to organizational culture. Here, the V+VMP flowing from the Institutional mode inform the character of the organization’s leadership; expected team member conduct; policies and programs that shape external perceptions (i.e., “good citizen” efforts); and operating practices that align with brand-defined standards for commercial undertakings and other organizational affairs. This brand mode sets expectations for people who matter to the organization.

The Relational mode encompasses multiple junctures of organizational accountability in the mission to attract, appeal to, or gain favor with employees, customers, investors, donors, creditors, suppliers, communities, regulators, NGOs, and innumerable watchdogs, among other stakeholders. Accountability translates as expectations, and met expectations are key ingredients in the reputational brand recipe. Thus, a primary goal in the relational brand mode involves enabling team members to understand, embrace, and properly represent the brand through behaviors and performance consistent with brand expectations. In this way, culture coalesces as a commitment to the organization’s many interested parties, which attaches to the brand as an implied or explicit promise.

The distinct characteristic of the Relational mode is the composition of the organization, which entails leadership aligned with cultural hallmarks, team members hired to fit the culture (presuming requisite skills), and policies and practices that reflect the culture’s guideposts. Here is where training and development, performance management, career pathing, and related HR programs operate in support of strategic priorities, which hopefully include brand-conscious objectives.

Leadership plays a significant role in championing the culture even beyond what exists as documented policies and procedures. That said, in large organizations there may be multiple subcultures that attenuate the leadership megaphone and cultural cohesion (beyond codes of conduct, HR-required courses, or ancillary regulatory administrivia).

This mode also supports the organization’s franchise to operate as a responsible participant in the larger society through its legal and various public affairs, ethical conduct, and sound operating practices. For example, the transparency of disclosures related to environmental and social practices, health and safety, corporate governance, and “good citizen” activities reflect the relationship-building aspect of the Relational mode.

The Relational mode is the province of brand cultivation — enabling the organizational society to properly interpret and represent the heritage and character of the brand across its various interactions. This mode is influenced by multiple functions and roles, with C-suite, HR, communications, and legal each having a decisive impact on the way organizational culture evolves and propagates. As a result, the people engaged in each of these functions should have a solid understanding of the brand’s central value proposition, origins, and authentic character. Ultimately, brand cultivation requires an ongoing cadence of tactics (see bullets below) combined with opportunistic occasions to reinforce key cultural pillars. Where the Institutional mode is more foundational and tone-setting in nature, the Relational mode is characterized by active stakeholder engagement in the effort to build and fortify organizational reputation.

Elements of the Relational mode include the following internal and external activities.

Internal:

• Code of Conduct; culture guide; orientation materials

• Leadership tone-setting

• People-manager training

• Performance management process

• Employee training, development, and career-pathing

• Acknowledgement, recognition and reward process

• Values-based programs (e.g., volunteerism, philanthropy, employee support)

External:

• Media/public relations

• Issues management / crisis communications

• Government and regulatory affairs

• Community relations

Commercial Mode

How to think of it: Activating value. Mobilizing expertise in pursuit of the organization’s productive ambitions.

The Commercial mode entails the activation of the organization’s central value proposition. Here, organizational competences such as design and engineering synthesize with sales and marketing to scale expertise in line with strategic, value-oriented opportunities, and according to brand expectations.

The Commercial mode is oriented to markets and customers (or, for non-profits, donors, members, constituents, etc.). Principally geared toward supporting revenue generation and gaining market share, the Commercial mode benefits from the primary reputational brand, which — depending on the strength of the brand — creates a favorable precondition to support the sale of products and services on their commercial merits (e.g., features, benefits and overall value, in addition to other selling points).

The customer and market focus of the Commercial mode represents a potential challenge for the reputational brand when adjusting messaging and campaigns to shifting preferences, trends, or demographics, or in genuflection to in-groups. Indeed, brand integrity suffers when messaging, voice, tone, or other brand attributes vary according to customers and market dynamics. Certainly, it is tempting to reframe the brand as perceived necessary to support revenue and market share growth. However, the essence of the reputational brand and its core character should never be transmogrified for the sake of mercantilism.

Adding pressure to brand integrity, the Commercial mode can embolden an idiosyncratic, quasi-independent culture distinct from the overarching organization and its reputational brand. It’s therefore not surprising to see departures in brand messaging, identity, nomenclature, applications, and related representations emanating from the Commercial mode.

Of course, a “house of brands” is less burdened by departures from parent brand dogma. However, it’s safe to say that misbehavior or tomfoolery by or within any individual commercial brand can result in potentially serious consequences for the parent organization.

The Commercial mode is the province of brand value — unleashing organizational expertise, skills, and talents to generate useful, helpful, or beneficial products and services. While multiple organizational roles and functions contribute to value activation, sales and marketing figure prominently in the way brand is expressed in the form of value. The former by virtue of prospect and customer engagement; the latter in the way brand is positioned and portrayed across the landscape of marketing activities, programs, materials, and content. Still, product and service design/development efforts that fail to consider brand touchstones risk end-user disappointment and performance inconsistent with brand representations.

Elements of the Commercial mode include:

• Marketing communications

• Brand marketing

• Creative services

• Content marketing

• Earned, owned, paid media

• Messaging framework for internal and external communications

• Sales culture

• Product development

• R&D

Transactional Mode

The Transactional brand mode is a characterized by operational execution. As such, the Transactional mode plays a major role in brand performance. Here, the organization’s operating culture and supporting operating system — to the extent one formally exists — determine the quality of brand interactions. These transactional, touchpoint moments can be of an instant, such as a sales call or customer service engagement, or over a continuum of time, such as the performance of a vehicle or appliance.

It’s no overstatement to say that a brand touchpoint, i.e., an experiential interaction, is a high-leverage moment of expression for a complex system of interdependencies that must work in harmony to achieve ideal touchstone experiences. It’s also true that in its seemingly infinite expressions, a brand fundamentally engenders emotional responses, the nature of which frequently depend upon tenuously orchestrated moments at unpredictably kinetic touchpoints.

The primary task of brand engineers is to align and orient the organization to achieve purposefully designed (ideal) brand moments. The moments can be tactile, sensory, or virtual. Nevertheless, while brand moments can follow predictably linear paths, they can also occur kaleidoscopically and randomly without any foreseeability.

It would seem impossible to fathom the complexity of touchpoint experiences in their sheer, knowable number and diversity, let alone design them with any precision. At the core, however, is an understanding that while much of brand experience design is uncontrollable, we should work hard to control and manage what we can. This includes identifying and controlling variables that can affect at-standard brand experiences. Which presupposes having established and understood standards for brand experiences across the domain of organizational touchpoints.

It should be the goal of everyone engaged in brand stewardship to design a theoretical ideal brand experience at crucial touchpoints across the universe of brand moments and the constituents who matter. And while an actual brand experience may fall short of a theoretical ideal, actively aspiring toward that end incrementally and inevitably advances brand reputation.

The Transactional mode is the domain of brand experiences — the nature of which are primed by organizational culture but ultimately contingent on operational execution. Every individual in the organization is an architect of brand experiences, either in the course of in-house teamwork or through external representations and engagements. However, whether because of work pressures, personal challenges, or simply a passing mood, people can fall short in delivering brand-aligned experiences. Ultimately, whatever can reduce human variability, such as automated systems or meticulous SOPs, will improve the consistency of brand experiences, and especially if said systems and processes are designed according to brand-aligned outcomes. Clearly, the Transactional mode is of great consequence to brand reputation. The promises and commitments made in the Institutional, Relational, and Commercial modes are either fulfilled or foiled based on the performance of people and processes.

Elements of the Transactional mode include:

• Operating culture (the “Way”)

• Operating system (processes, SOPs, technology enablers)

• Product and service quality

• Service level agreements

• Touchpoint mapping and experience design

• Brand expectation training

• Workplace and customer safety

If the reader takes nothing else away from the concept of brand modes, one must at least realize that there is no such thing as a single, constant, and steadfast grip on the way brand is shaped, managed, or represented. With so many “programmers and programs” involved, the brand system operates with multiple instruction sets, not all of which are always intentional, scrutable or controllable. As opponents said of basketball legend Michael Jordan, “you can’t stop him; you can only hope to contain him.” Similarly, when it comes to managing brand, you can’t control the system — you can only hope to guide it.

Obviously, this reality has implications for the reputational brand. In most brand-attentive organizations reputational concerns cluster around senior leadership roles, often related to risk mitigation, damage repair, or image polishing. However, many impactful reputational moments (brand experiences — good and bad) transpire continuously across the organization beyond surveillance and supervision, a fact that suggests uncovering and architecting at least some of these off-radar brand experiences would be worth the effort.

All told, we can only recognize reputation as the product of an organization-wide system, where expertise, culture, people, and processes reconstitute as thousands of daily touchpoints and corresponding brand-shaping moments. Each of these touchpoint moments represents a seminal brand experience, the aggregate of which synthesizes over time as brand reputation.

The more we can shine light on touchpoint moments, the better we can hypothesize ideal experiences associated with them and their enabling mechanisms (e.g., procedures, processes, technologies, scripts, etc.). That’s the ultimate task of the consciously designed brand system: to arrange people, culture, strategy, operations, and enabling mechanisms to design and deliver ideal touchpoint moments.