Brand Communication and Reputation Management

This study material discusses the importance of brand communication and reputation management. It covers topics such as marketing communication plan, degree of integration, design of creativity, and how to extend the campaign in the future. The case study focuses on John Lewis & Partners and their campaign 'We are Partners' to connect with customers and gain a competitive advantage.

Brand communication and
reputation management

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Communication plan....................................................................................................................3
Degree of integration...................................................................................................................5
Design of creativity......................................................................................................................7
How to extend campaign in the future.........................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is defined as a set of activity that involve effective planning, organising,
controlling of activities that help in developing value to customers and increase sales of an
organisation. In addition to this, marketing activities allows a company to promote their products
and service and enhance their customer base level. The case study given states that John Lewis,
which is a multinational company launched an event in the year 2018 named as “We are
Partners”. The man motive of the campaign is to make connection with customers by the help of
employees in order to gain competitive advantage and fight with the rivals in an effective
manner. The company was founded in the year 1864 and offer products such as furniture,
homeware, fashion product and so on. The higher authorities of company believes that employee
are the co-owners of business that allow an organisation to gain higher success as well as growth.
A marketing communication plan is developed of the campaign that includes objectives,
strategies and so on. In addition to the design of creativity and integration model is discuss in the
report in a proper manner.
Communication plan
John Lewis & partners was launched an event in the year 2018 named as “we are partners”
as they believe employees are the co-workers and asset that help company to reach on the higher
position in a proper manner. It is important for an organisation to develop a marketing
communication plan as it include objectives, marketing strategies, tactics and many other steps.
By the assistance of this, the managers of John Lewis & Partners gain positive results from the
campaign which was organised in the year 2018. The five stages of communication plan is given
below in relation to the John Lewis & Partners:
Background: It is a high-end department stores that was found in the year 1864. John
Lewis offer quality furniture, homeware, beauty products, fashion products and many more. At
present the company has around 38,000 employees and its head quarter is located in London,
United Kingdom. In order to influence employees and gain higher position at marketplace, the
company was launched campaign “we are partners”. The brand is communicating in order to

increase their customer base level that has a positive influence on the overall sales performance
and profitability of an organisation.
Objective: The Company believe that its employees are the co- owner of the organisation
and for this John Lewis rebrand itself as Joh Lewis & Partners. It is determined that social media
is one the core channel in order to leverage and provide partners a way to develop relationship
directly with customers. The motive of company is to develop social connections with customers
through partners as it will help in fighting with competitors and attain higher position from the
rivals. From the case study, it is determined that the objective to conduct campaign was to
enhance customer base level and increase number of loyal customers that aid in gaining
competitive advantage at marketplace.
Strategy: The big idea for the campaign is to inspire employees and make them feel valued
at the workplace. The campaign “We are partners” help company to motivate employees so that
they can work with full potential that has a positive influence on the productivity of an
organisation. In addition to this, the big idea behind the campaign is to leverage position in
market as compare to rivals and build a strong relationship with customers in an effective
manner.
Target audience:
The overall campaign of John Lewis was increasing 40% of sales that takes place at the
Christmas period of the Year. To their efforts made by the organization to main the target those
customers who are willing to purchase please shoes that on the occasion of Christmas. Also at
the same time when was a major campaign that the overall campaign of John Lewis was based
on use of 13 social media tools. So there were complete focus on specially the millennial
generation who is continuously involved in using the updated version of social media
applications and also those segments of society who are continuously active on such social media
platforms were mainly targeted by the brand.
Programmed tactics:
The overall campaign of John Lewis was based on using their employees as their partners in this
campaign. The communication strategy that was adopted was majorly the social media as a Core

channel for the purpose of leveraging. Partners who were basically employees of the
organization were given opportunities to directly engaged on such social media platforms so that
they can have one to one interaction directly with their prospective as well as present level of
customers. There was a swift in which 25000 partners had to take screen on social media
platform that was a most significant shift of the strategy. There was a training that was delivered
across their 51 branches so that all their partners can create why it was completely successful as
27000 pieces of content was created because of this training.
Control and Evaluation
While talking about the overall success that was able to be achieved by this campaign that it can
be understood with the help of impressive returns that was on by this plant in a very short period
of time.
1) There was an increase in 179 percent of the conversion rate of those product 70% impact on
enhancement of revenue per visitor lift (Ullah, Ranjha, . and Rehan, 2018).
2) Revenue of hundred tin generated with the help of such social media advertisements that had
only a very limited financial investment. Coral associated cost was only in Logistics such as in
training of employees, cost for mobile devices and cost of internal application that was used as a
communication hub by this organization (Tuten and Solomon, 2017).
3) The Organization was successfully able to achieve 220 million Impressions with the help of
all the partners’ campaign and there was an equaling media under just investment of 1 million
pounds they have able to 5 times of the original investment they made (SEZGİN, . and
TELİNGÜN, ., 2016). It is a Completely different from their traditional E-Commerce channels.

Degree of integration
POE model is a four stage model that is based on four different stages that is used for the
purpose of integration with the help of their marketing campaign.
1) Paid: It is the first aspect of the model is paid media. Paid media is becoming a great tool of
public relations practice that is used by many organization for the purpose of eating their
customers in the most creative manner it is a very nowadays consists of different types of print
advertisement television advertisements that can be used for the purpose of marketing and
promotion by a particular organization (Ottman, 2017). Social media content is also a part of Part
of paid advertising in which organization generally outsource their advertising activities to other
organizations that possess specialization in such areas. In case of John Lewis, use of social media
accounts of 25,000 partners that have helped them in target segment of market.
2) Earned: It is another aspect of this model which is related with traditional domain of public
relations. There press releases are fixed third parties analyst journalist or influences for
repurposing the content for their own personal audiences. A very limited control over overall
outcomes and it totally depends on the creativity of such people (Malek, Sarin, and Jaworski,
2018). There can be use of media relations, organic influencer content and Blogger relations that
are some of the aspects of earned. In present case of John Lewis, there is use of the overall
workforce of organization who have been converted as partners by them in this campaign. There
has been no extra cost that has been incurred by this organization for hiring any other influencer
or blogger for the purpose of marketing but instant they have use their in-house employees and
different other stakeholders who are associated with the brand who can use their own social
media handles for the purpose of marketing the brand (Wang,. and Kim, 2017).
3) Shared: This aspect is related to the different forms of social media that can be Twitter,
LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook YouTube, snapchat extra are some of the basic social media
platforms and it also consist of Messenger apps such as WhatsApp (Dahl, 2018). All these
applications are used for the purpose of sharing of overall content of marketing organization and
then for the using them as a marketing tool for making their target customers aware. In John

Lewis, all such social media applications, where their partners are having accounts and they
possess presence were used as a strategy for approaching their customers and were actively used
for purpose of content marketing.
4) Owned: It is the last respect of the model that describes that any channel or content over with
the organization is using must possess a complete control. Marketing Communication collateral,
email or any other form of website (Achhra, Tsikine and Paykis, , 2019).. If any organization
possess high amount of effectiveness with their stakeholders then it can lead to high amount of
control over all the outcomes. In John Lewis, all the social media accounts were belong to their
partners who were associated with the organization complete control on all the activities that
were taking place on such 25,000 accounts It can be said that it was a completely owned strategy
of marketing that was used by this organization.
Design of creativity
The degree of creativity in the campaign was company did not make use of paid
advertising as it give access to 25,000 employees to promote their business. In addition to this,
another creativity involve in the campaign was involvement of employees and make them as Co-
partners, which is such an inspiration for all other companies in market. For the design of
creativity, CAN model is applied.
CAN model: It is basically a decision making model that allow companies to resolve
issues and decline the level of risk in an effective manner. This model is basically involve trio
stages which is given below:
Flight: This stage shows that problems that is kept for the long time are never solved.
Oversight: Herein, the decision makers mainly the managers are looking for solving the
solutions in order to resolve the problem effectively.
Resolution: It states that sometimes companies dredge up solutions due to inefficiency and
chance associated with the rational processes.
The campaign contains a high risk as it was launched near the days of Christmas, which is
consider as one of the season in order to increase sales and profit of the organization. In addition
to this, the company was decided to give training in slots that is 100 employees so that they can
work with full efficiency. It occurs cost to company but give best results as it 40% sale increase
as compare to the last quarter. In addition to this, the company save the cost of paid advertising

that has a positive influence on the revenue level of John Lewis. By the assistance of CAN
model, the company can decline the level of issues and brings out creativity in an effective and
proper manner at marketplace.
How to extend campaign in the future
This campaign has been a great success for John Lewis, it can be said that it will be very
helpful in future development of this organization and enhancement of cost effectiveness
minimum risk involved and positive returns over the minimum amount of Expenditure that has
been done by this organization. The overall simplicity based on which this campaign was
initiated was actually the main reason for its success also concluded and recommended at the
same time that the alignment with the organization has formed that lead to high involvement of
their employees and all the stakeholder that have been associated with the organization both
internally and externally has actually resulted into the that has been achieved. The use of relevant
and personal experience that was able to be built up by the social connection with their
customers has actually lead to increasing the connection between their customers and the special
weapon were the partners that has them in achievement of a competitive advantage. The
campaign can be extended beyond the social media accounts and several other applications such
as you tube can be used as a medium of creating channels of employees who can do personal
blogging and reviewing hauls so that target customer can get attracted. These are some of the
sources that can actually result into creation of personal interaction and direct interactive
sessions with various customers that will lead to enhancement of overall customer experience.
Live sessions as a you tube features can also be used for understand what are reactions of
customers on such products of John Lewis in this there will be direct involvement of customers
as most important part of their campaign. The campaign “We are partners” need to be extended
as it help company to increase their customer base level and remain in the competition at
marketplace. There are various ways that can be used by the company in order to extend the
campaign are as follows:
 The company can make use of social media applications such as YouTube, LinkedIn
in order to promote more about their campaign to the people prevailing at
marketplace. In addition to this, it also help managers to increase their number of
contacts due to which company can build positive image at marketplace.

 It is essential for company to maintain a balance between the offline offering and
online offering as well. The mangers are need to emphasise on both the mediums, as
both are important for increasing sales and profitability of an organisation.
Nowadays, customers are like to prefer using something innovative and creative.
This campaign help company to aware people about their quality and uniqueness that
leads to raise in market position as well as market share of the company.
 As compare to other campaigns organised by companies, the campaign of John
Lewis is more effective as it allow employees to be as partners of company and bring
out their creativity in an effective manner.
CONCLUSION
From the above case study, it is determined that marketing plays an important role in
increasing sales as well as profitability of an organisation. It is determine that one of the key
asset for company to gain success is its employees as without their high performance, it is not
possible for an organisation to attain their desired goals effectively and timely as well. In
addition to this, it is significant to develop marketing communication plan as it include all the
strategies, tactics and plans associated with the marketing objective. For the design of creativity,
the company uses CAN model that help in performing each and every activity related with bring
innovation in market effectively as well as appropriately. Furthermore, it has been analysed that
it is important for higher authorities to evaluate the performance of employees on continuous
basis in order to make improvements and attain higher growth at marketplace.

REFERENCES
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