Why should you attend?
What is a brand? What constitutes branding? Is branding possible for governments and public sector organizations? What are the key branding challenges and issues faced by governments? What lessons can governments learn from commercial branding? What’s the difference between messaging, positioning and branding? How are they linked in doing strategic communications? How can you structure messages to reach different audiences while maintaining overall coherence and consistency? These and many other questions will be addressed in this one-day workshop designed to provide understanding of branding, positioning and messaging and their application to the challenges faced by government communicators.
What will you learn?
The workshop will focus on:
- Understanding the differences between public and private sector branding
- Key issues and challenges in government branding
- Current Canadian public sector branding examples
- The branding process
- Branding benefits and challenges
- Linkages between branding, positioning and messaging
- The positioning process
- Crafting and applying a positioning statement
- Ensuring the branding – positioning – messaging linkage
What will you take away?
- Participant notebook consisting of presentation slides
- Exercises and handouts
- A link to post-workshop resources available for download
- Certificate of completion
Sample Agenda
| Activity |
|---|
| Introductions and Workshop Overview |
| Branding Basics What is a brand and branding? What does it mean in a public sector context? What are the main issues and challenges in government branding? Branding and communications. Differences between the public and private sectors. Developing and sustaining a brand image. The benefits and challenges of branding government and its organizations. Branding Quiz Mini Exercise |
| BREAK |
| The Branding Process Branding as a goal and a process. Essential steps. Key implementation issues. Getting started – The “Elevator Pitch”. Group Exercise |
| LUNCH |
| Building a Public Sector Brand Strategy Key elements of a branding strategy: SWOT analysis, branding objectives, architecture, brand promise and positioning, segmentation and messaging, tactics, internal brand, sub-brands, co-branding, monitoring and evaluation, critical success factors, risk assessment. Canadian public sector branding experiences. Lessons learned. Developing the plan. Group Exercise |
| BREAK |
| The Importance of Positioning What is positioning and why is it important to branding. The strategic planning context. The positioning process. Developing a positioning statement. Linkages between positioning, messaging and branding. The importance of audience segmentation. Messaging around a brand. Developing and living the “Message Pyramid” Group Exercise |
| Wrap-up and Workshop Evaluation Participants will complete a short evaluation. |
You folks have the best materials! I thank you and your colleagues for your continued support. It’s one of the reasons we continue to come back!