Stand by Your Brand

Glenn Karwoski, managing director of the Minneapolis-based marketing communications agency Karwoski & Courage, tells a story about bringing his car to the dealership for a routine service visit. As it turned out, the car needed a fix that would keep it in the shop all day.

“They were completely out of loaners, but one of the staff said, ‘Let me see what I can do,’” Karwoski recalls. “Somehow, he found me a car to drive for the day. On my way into work I called my wife and said, ‘Listen to what they did for me.’ That’s how your brand is built—by people telling stories about you.”

Brand maintenance is an ongoing journey. A company that decides its brand will never change is probably doomed to failure.

It’s also how your brand is attacked and defended, defamed and maintained. Defending and maintaining your brand, local experts say, is a continual process, one that requires adjustments to tactics and intensity as business conditions change. “Brand maintenance is an ongoing journey,” says Randy Sands, senior vice president in the Minneapolis office of public relations firm Weber Shandwick. (The company is based in New York.) “A company that decides ‘This is our brand and it will be like this forever’ is probably doomed to failure.”

As you steer your brand into the future, public relations firms and consultants have some ideas about how to make sure that people tell positive stories about you.