3M
CREATING GLOBAL BRAND COHESION
Our work with 3M was focused on helping the storied Minnesota company to give focus and clarity to its corporate brand across 10 major industrial and consumer markets, with 33 major product platforms, and customers in almost every country on earth.
The challenge was to find a workable idea that could encapsulate, and differentiate, the 3M brand; taking into account the tremendous breadth and diversity of this company.
OUR ENGAGEMENT HAD TWO PRIMARY PHASES:
Discovery & Insights
In order to be effective, we needed to uncover what made 3M unique and special, including tangible business practices and intangible cultural elements.
Extensive discovery with the executive team and interviews and discussions with all of the business leaders of each of 3Ms business units
A series of cultural discovery interviews and focus groups conducted with employees from every major group within the company
Global customer interviews with a mixture of key accounts and smaller accounts, drawn from every major industry where 3M has a presence (automative, healthcare, manufacturing etc.)
Strategy Development
Based on our findings from discovery, we developed a variety of brand strategy and positioning options for 3M and vetted these with senior management through a robust review process.
The final brand strategy was then developed into robust roll-out plan to ensure that the brand was effectively communicated to a global workforce. This included the development of a series of assets that made the strategy and positioning accessible to line manager employees around the world.
