Case Study: Analyzing WMB's Brand Culture and Change Management

This case study examines the WMB brand's journey from success to decline and its subsequent efforts to rebuild its brand culture and reposition itself in the market. It analyzes the role of Ciara in leading a deep culture change, contrasting it with a superficial marketing exercise. The analysis highlights the importance of involving employees, creating new brand values, and understanding the dynamics of change management. The study also differentiates the responsibilities of marketing and communications specialists from those of organizational development and change management specialists in building brand culture and repositioning efforts. Furthermore, the case study provides insights into the key aspects of brand culture building, including defining, differentiating, exposing, and personalizing the brand. It also discusses brand repositioning strategies, such as analyzing the current brand position and understanding consumer perception. The document emphasizes the need for continuous review and adaptation in response to evolving business landscapes.

Running Head: Managing Change
Burger WMB
Managing Change
Building a new Brand Culture

Managing Change P a g e | 1
Table of Content
Case Analysis..................................................................................................................................................... 2
Question 1........................................................................................................................................................... 2
Answer 1.............................................................................................................................................................. 2
Facts citing Ciara’s deep culture change at WMB........................................................................... 3
Question 2........................................................................................................................................................... 4
Answer................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Reposition the Brand................................................................................................................................. 5
Role of OD and Change management specialist in Building Brand culture.........................5
Role of OD and change management specialist in Brand repositioning................................6
Question 3........................................................................................................................................................... 6
Answer................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Question 4........................................................................................................................................................... 8
Answer................................................................................................................................................................. 8
References........................................................................................................................................................ 12

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Case Analysis
Question 1: Did the WMB brand culture exercise led by Ciara represent the beginning
of a deep culture change for WMB in 2013, or was it more of a superficial marketing
exercise? Explain your answer with reference to the text and relevant academic
readings
Answer 1: WMB brand can be seen as a story of “Glory to Gutter”, the company after
tasting huge success and a great market share during 80s, 90s and early 2000s went
straight into the ground because of its static marketing and business strategy. The
company failed to innovate with the growing pace of the QSR (Quick Service
Restaurant) on New Zealand which began after 2000. The companies tried and tested
formulae using the value proposition of “Value for Money” , tasty, quick and plenty of
food was replaced by plethora of restaurant opening in the city which focussed more on
developing the healthy eating habits of individuals and more so because of foray of
plenty of International burger chains in the city like Mc Donald. The sales of WMB were
plummeting by 12% YOY which was accompanies by an increasing operational cost by
8% YOY. Thus, the company needed Change to drive the brand and make it
contemporary to its times.
Ciara (Sister in Law of Bill-The founder of the stores) was pioneer in developing and
building a new brand culture at WMB brand. She had worked at almost all the
departments of the WMB brand and was a known face to both the management and the
staff; she was working as a training manager presently at BB group. It can be said with
no doubt that Ciara’s plan was the beginning of a deep culture change for WMB and not
just a marketing gimmick to push the sales. The same can be established by various
facts stated in the case.
Change management is the systematic process of dealing with the transition and
transformation of organizational goals, process or technologies, the underlying
rationale behind change management is to create strategies for effective change,
controlling change and helping people to adopt the change (Doppelt, 2017). Change
management is a long process and it does not occur overnight, organization has to
ensure that people who will be impacted with the change management are kept in loop

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at all times and their feedback and recommendation are duly noted, this is done to
ensure less resistance in the process of Change management process(Cameroon &
Green, 2015). Ciara had a good understanding of change management and also had
some experience in carrying out infrastructural and technological change in the past.
Ciara knew well in advance the challenges she could face and thus involved everybody
in the process of change management.
Facts citing Ciara’s deep culture change at WMB
 Working towards reduction in the costs-Changing an organizational culture is
one of the toughest job at hand for the leadership, this is so because culture of an
organization encompasses interlocking set of goals, roles, processes, values,
commitment, practices, attitudes and assumptions(Hayes, 2014). Thus,
leadership has to tackle each of the factor one at a time to ensure the smooth
execution of change management process (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). The plan
suggested by Quadrant 47 was based on massive marketing campaigns using
both traditional and contemporary tools of marketing which had a very high cost
implication as it was a nationwide campaign. Ciara had a different plan in mind
which was in sync with the process of change management, going with a low risk
approach with due diligence. Her new plan would save company a fortune and
would be more targeted and the company would also have a backup plan to
reinvent the strategy if something went wrong. The new plan suggested by her
would come at 40% of the cost as that of the consulting company.
 Involving the people to overcome resistance and build positive synergies-
Ciara was well averse with the risk which comes along with the process of
change management, thus she created a “NO-NONSENSE” plan by bringing in all
the staff and managers of the 17 stores and took their feedback and
recommendation on the proposed change to improve the ailing condition of the
company. If it would have been just a marketing trick, she could have easily sat
down with the marketing and consulting team overnight and implemented the
strategy. However, she wanted to build something deep, meaning and
sustainable for the brand, hence wanted to bring in all the people together
working on common objectives.

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 Creation of new brand culture which was translated to Brand values- Ciara
knew the WMB brand needs a complete makeover, adoption of new brand
culture and a brand positioning statement which can translate into useful values
for the company. Ciara was sure that the newly formed brand values will help the
company in staying competitive and create a stronger brand presence in the
market. The new brand values were created keeping in mind the brand culture of
WMB, viz; playful, authentic and efficient customer management, traditional,
quality and value with high standards of hygiene, groovy relaxing in the store
atmosphere which is supported by décor, layouts and lightning, and friendly and
authentic engagement with the customers to create strong brand advocacy and
make them the promoters of the brand along with repeat customers. Thus, the
new brand values were more than marketing, they were the imprint of how Ciara
would like WMB brand to be perceived by its customers, which would help the
brand in reaching business sustainability by staying competitive and evolving
with the dynamics of business change.
Change management is a long and continues process and it requires strong headed
people to identify, implement and execute the change in the business organization
(Worley & Mohrman, 2014, p.214-224). Change is accompanied with plethora of
obstacles such as resistance by the employees, not sufficient funds to carry out the
change, non-consensus with the staff and many more (Gollenia, 2016). Ciara wanted to
bring a change in the WBM brand and she wanted the change to be not superficial, but
she wanted a deep change in the culture, hence took careful steps to execute the
strategy of change implementation and execution.
Question 2: In your opinion what aspects of the brand culture building and
repositioning process should be undertaken by marketing and communications
specialists and what aspects by organisation development (OD) and change
management specialists? Explain your answer with reference to the text, this case study,
the marketing literature and/or your own experience.
Answer: Companies these days are spending a lot of money in building a strong brand
culture which resonates with the customers, but a number of companies are also
investing in building a brand culture which excites and inspires even their employees

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(Schroeder, Borgerson & Wu, 2014). Brand culture as mentioned in an article of Forbes
can be understood as the unique amalgamation of psychology, ideas, attitudes and
beliefs which conveys brand behaviour which influences brand experience which leads
to brand reputation (Dasgupta & Gupta, 2018, p.176-198). Building a brand culture is
very important and personal to a brand. Within the purview of marketing and
communication specialist the attributes for brand culture within the WMB group and
other organization are:
 Defining the brand-It is very important to identify the true meaning of the
brand and what it stands for (Liu, 2015,p.187). For example, WMB wanted its
brand to stand for being playful, authentic, efficient customer engagement,
traditional quality and hygiene with high standards of hygiene and friendly and
relaxed environment creating positive brand advocacy.
 Differentiate and position the brand-It is necessary to differentiate the brand
to make it stand in the highly competitive environment (Holtorf, 2016). WMB for
example was initially meant for blue collared people and families for weekends.
However, due to the changing business dynamics, the company differentiated the
brand by polishing its old values with new values and creating a different menu
all together to target the new customer audience.
 Building and exposing the brand-Brand awareness is the key to build and
expose the brand to the customers or other stakeholder (Chen, 2016). WMB
group has been doing so by launching a pilot programme for its 6 stores and
highly targeted campaign on social media and other media vehicle.
 Personalize the brand-In order to personalize the brand, one has to create a
brand identity, and this brand identity can be thus used by the customers as a
way of perceiving the identity of the brand (Kim, 2017, p.117-146). This was
ensured at WMB group by creating uniforms, hygiene, décor and great lightning
at the restaurant.
 Review the brand-The business is evolving at a very fast pace and so the
business never remains static. In such a case, a brand has to keep reviewing the
brand and its strategy to keep the brand values in sync with the present times
(Wheeler, 2017).

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Reposition the Brand
The following aspect falls within the purview of marketing and communication
specialist in repositioning of the brand:
Analyse the current position of the brand-Marketing and communication strategist
have to identify the brand in detail, how the brand has evolved over the time, the
market share, challenges, market position, consumer behaviour and industry
performance(Johns & English, 2016, p.65-72).
Consumer perception-The first and foremost thing is to understand the perception of
the customers about the brand, their taste and preferences to better understand the
consumer views and opinions (Reddy, Reddy & Venkatesulu, 2016, p.321-326).
Developing the repositioning strategy-The strategy here is to develop objectives,
mission and vision to reposition the brand. The idea here is to set SMART objectives for
the brand and focus on them to implement new brand strategy (Insch & Bowden, 2016,
p.47-54).
Role of OD and Change management specialist in Building Brand culture
 Keeping everyone on the same page- The biggest responsibility of the change
management and OD team is to involve everyone in the process of building a new
brand culture (Johnson & Grainge, 2015). WMB group did the same by calling in
all the staff and store managers to consider their feedback and explain them the
new brand culture.
 Imbibe the new values in the organization- Another major role here is to
conduct workshop and training for the staff to make them understand the reason
for the new brand culture and how they fit into the same(Kim, 2016,p.121-130).
The onus here is on the organization to make the employees feel comfortable
with the new brand culture and remove any resistance.
 Replacing the old with the new-Creating a new brand culture comes with
plethora of added responsibilities and challenges in the way of change
management (Saha, 2017). The change process helps in identifying whereas
lacunae in the organization which can be in terms of human resource,
technology, business process, infrastructure and many more, OD and change

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management specialist have to identify them and remove them if they see it as a
misfit in the organization and the new brand culture. For example, the brand
culture of WMB group were not going own well with number of senior staff and
managers, thus they were asked to leave and in place additional staff was hired
who fit into the new brand culture.
Role of OD and change management specialist in Brand repositioning
Overcome the resistance- The first and the foremost thing which one has to do in the
organization is to take everybody’s feedback on the brand repositioning strategy and
work the way upward. They have to ensure that employee feedback is acknowledged,
also to cater to employee’s resistance if any (Burke, 2017).
Encouragement fosters engagement- Engage the staff in the process of brand
repositioning to encourage them in participating in the change management work.
Employees are the biggest possible asset for the organization thus they have to be
engaged at all times to build encouragement and ensure smooth transition to a new
brand positioning (Cummings & Worley, 2014).
Exposing the employees to the benefits of Brand Repositioning- The change
management specialists have to make the employees understand the fruits of brand
repositioning to its employees. Employees on understanding the specific benefits of
repositioning strategy will help them in coming up with constructive feedback which
can help the organization in focussing on its repositioning strategy.
It can be thus said that it is not just the responsibility of marketing and communication
specialist to work on the brand culture and the repositioning strategy, the effective
usage of a specialized team of Organisational development and change management
specialist is required to carry out the transition at ease. Both the teams have their own
individual responsibility which they have to cater to, and to also keep the employees
best interest in mind along with gradually moving towards the new organizational goals
and objectives.
Question 3: Do you think that Ciara did a good job? Please explain your answer

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Answer: Wild Man Burgers was a fairly successful change back in 80s, 90s and early
2000s. It was the first choice of blue collared consumers and families on the weekends.
The seating arrangement and the packaging, food quality, food offering were all in sync
with the current demand of the market. However, the company failed to foresee the
changing business dynamics and the possible effects it could have on the existing
business of WMB burgers. The failure of the company was inevitable because of the new
changed demands of the consumers, rise in healthy eating habits, entry of international
players in the markets, demographic shift of urban dwellers and growth of social media
marketing channels. Ciara did a fairly decent and good job in building a brand new
culture and in repositioning the brand. The evaluation of her efforts is fairly difficult to
estimate at the given point in time because it takes a good amount of time to implement
the change in the organization and then to evaluate the results of it. However, few
points below will validate the fact that Ciara did a good job in her approach at WMB. She
took care that she goes by the book while identifying the change, implementing the
change and then executing it
Low-Risk Piloting Approach- Quadrant 47 the management consultant which the
brand hired to work on the brand building and repositioning strategy wanted to go with
a full blow marketing campaigns for all the stores which would cause the organization a
heavy bomb of $280,000. The cogent and prudent Ciara realized it was a wasteful
expenditure and would not yield desired results. She wanted to take steps one at a time
and evaluate the result of her steps and then build a new strategy. Her pilot programme
was targeted first towards only 6 stores, saving huge costs for the company.
Due diligence in Brand culture change- Change does not happen overnight, more so if
things are done in a haste there are chances that it would mean otherwise for the
organization(Smith & Outfitters, 2017,p.93-108). Although the management wanted the
change to be implemented at the earliest, Ciara on the other hand wanted to be due
diligent in taking every step. Due to this, she planned changes in the culture change,
infrastructure, brand and menu offering first in six selected stores. She also wanted the
brand to focus more on building the brand through the usage of social media campaign
which despite being cost effective can target a wide range of audience. Thus, the plan
was effective and cost effective and the management was even in sync with her plan as
it was 40% of the cost proposed by Quadrant 47 team.

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Engaging all the stakeholders in the process of change management- Ciara had
quite some experience in handling the process of change management, she knew the
intricacies and the possible resistance which could come in the way of change
management. Ciara created a no nonsense plan by inviting all the managers and staff to
provide feedback on the proposed change in the brand culture by the management. This
exercise is a very beneficial step in the process of change management and helps in
winning the trust and support of the employees. Conducting the exercise Ciara was
confident that she would be able to answer the specific question like “what will work?”,
“what will not and why”. Thus, it can be said that Ciara was really playing by the book of
change management in ensuring the change in brand culture and repositioning the
brand strategy.
Foreseeing the challenges on the way of Change management-Ciara was aware that
at the onset of change management she would encounter troubles, she was smart
enough to identify the three fold challenges at hand, which were: Making the six store
pilot program a grand success, rolling out the new brand culture in remaining 11 stores
and lastly working in tandem with the consultants, head office, marketing and
promotions team, acquire new customer, retain new customers and so on. Ciara
developed strategies to tackle each one of these challenges one by one. This really
shows the leadership of Ciara and is adaptability to the changing environment.
Creating strategies bigger than Brand communication campaign-Ciara was of the
opinion that such a massive change, even though in the 6 stores of WMB was not going
to be a cake walk, which could be managed by just launching an advertising campaign.
She designed a change management and implementation plan encompassing
organizational development, organizational transformation, change communication and
brand management principles. Ciara left no loopholes in her plans, she did everything
right to ensure the success of WMB store and revitalize and reinvent the entire brand to
better suit the growing needs of the customer.
Towards the end it can be said that Ciara did everything possible to reinvent the brand
and create a new brand culture, however, it did not go down well due to a number of
colliding chains of event. Death of Will, partners fighting over the shareholding of the
burger chain and few more issues were at the forefront of troubles for Ciara, due to

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these unexpected events, the date of implementation and execution of the stores was
pushed by 6 months. However, people appreciated the new design, antiques, the vibe of
the place, the sales were still plummeting. It is only time, which can tell the future of
WMB. However, as far as Ciara is concerned she did a terrific job, and given an ideal set
of conditions the plan would result in a grand success of the burger chain.
Question 4: If you were Ciara what would you have done differently between late 2012
and mid-2013?
Answer: With the advent of globalization and rapid change in the dynamics of Quick
service restaurant after 2000s the wisdom of Bill Buckie who was in the business of
burgers for 50 years was in question. The wild man burger brand image was engulfed in
plummeting sales which resulted in lower market capitalization and losses for the
company. The management was concern and wanted to create a strategy to make once a
popular burger chain work. Ciara took the onus and responsibility to personally look
into the matter and turn around the table by bringing profitability back into Wild Man
Burger. Ciara did a terrific job in trying to build a new brand culture and I strongly
appreciate and commend the job she did for the burger chain, but, if I were Ciara, I
would have done following things differently to achieve the target:
Conducting a marketing research-The first and foremost thing which I would have
done being in Ciara’s position would be conducting a market research and asking the
customer directly what do they expect from Wild Man Burger and what should the
burger store do in order to win back the lost market share. It is a very cogent thing to
do, ask the people what do they want, based on their feedback and suggestion work
towards developing and creating a new menu, ambience and look and feel of the
place(Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). Marketing research would also help in identifying
what are the successful stores doing and why do they have a large footfall in their
stores(Booth, 2015) Thus, Marketing research would be the first step I would have
taken being in the position of Ciara.
Focussing on Customer experience- Nowhere in the case study was it mentioned on
how to delight the experience of customer when he visits the store. It was just
mentioned in brief about the new design, groovy and playful music with the current
themed infrastructure. Customer experience on the other hand is the interaction

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between the organization and the customer, the customer experience is a strong focus
point for the organization in order to ensure the sustainability of the revenue (Smollen,
2015, p.301-314). Ciara did not focus on engaging the customer in order to give them a
delighted experience when they visit the store. In order to build customer experience
the store should focus on taking and acknowledging the customer feedback, working on
the feedback remove the pain points of the customers. I would have also started
building a bond with the customer by providing them loyalty reward points for their
association with the store. Delighted customer will help the brand to grow by becoming
their positive brand advocates.
Creating a team of specialist to carry out the process of change management- Ciara
took the entire onus on her because she had the experience of working at different
layers of the management and was the best person suited for the change management.
In my opinion, I would have gone ahead by creating a team of executives who would
focus specifically on the process of change management and I would have overlooked
the same and created new strategies to further reinvent the brand and ensure adoption
of brand culture in the organization. The team with focussed attention on change
management would be highly efficient in ensuring the change transformation and I
could focus on working towards adoption of the change management.
Engaging the workforce- Workforce engagement in change management process is a
must and should to ensure the effectiveness of the change management process and
also to ensure that resistance from the workforce is kept at minimum. Ciara had limited
interaction with the managers and staff when she contacted them to ask their
recommendation on proposed changes. However, a deeper and an enhanced
involvement are required to carry out the change management process. Employees are
always susceptible of change and are scared of it, thus it is advisable to do away their
fears and help them in understanding the rationale behind bringing the change in the
organization. Better and openness in communication is another way by which I could
have addressed the store staff and made them be a part of the change management
process. It is a known fact that team work helps in building positive synergies which
help in achieving the smart objectives and goals for the organization.