Brands and bodyguards

A new concept is slowly developing within Romanian branding consulting business: brand guardianship. This is for the moment an informal term, rather difficult to be defined and established within one class or another. It is natural: we haven’t talked about this business type in Romania so far.

People having watched on TV the football game between the teams Jiul Petrosani and Dinamo Bucharest on May 6 could notice, on a more careful look, the logo Connex on a billboard located somewhere by one of the gates, instead of Vodafone, though the new Vodafone brand had already been launched a week before this football game took place. This is probably the exact type of incident that made people involved in the brand consulting business establish and develop an independent branch of this activity: brand guardianship. In Romania this term is not yet established in the specialized language of the branding field, but it can be adapted accordingly starting from the positioning of certain foreign consulting companies. This is what, for example, the British company Enterprise IG – recently promoted in Romania through a partnership concluded with Brandient – claims to be on its Internet site: ‘Enterprise IG is Vodafone’s global brand guardian’. Based on its ‘guardian’ status, Enterprise IG also claims to be responsible of making sure that ‘the entire external and internal Vodafone communication, as well its activities, are helping to increase the brand’s values and reputation’. One type of activity Enterprise IG makes reference to may be inclusively the process of winding up a brand difficult to wipe out from people’s conscience – such as Connex – a brand continuing to pose a real problem to Vodafone officials. Is there any connection between the British Enterprise having penetrated the Romanian market and the launch of the Vodafone brand in Romania? One must keep in mind the fact that though Enterprise had worked before with Brandient on a local project, the association of the two companies took place this spring. Simon Bailey, Client Services Director with Enterprise IG London (the headquarters) has recently revealed to BUSINESS Magazin the intention to gain the Vodafone clients in Romania and that preliminary talks for this purpose had already taken place. On the other hand, Vodafone launch seems to explain Enterprise IG’s interest in Romania. Moreover Enterprise is part of WPP – world’s greatest communication group – where there is a business center specially dedicated to this mobile phone operator. ‘We are a key member of the Vodafone team, which also includes JWT Thompson (an advertising agency also active in Romania and enforcing its team also for attracting the Vodafone client, as BUSINESS Magazin sources claim), Wundermann and Kantar,’ Enterprise IG officials say. Should Vodafone Romania become a client of Brandient – the business partner of the British in Romania in a contract relationship not affecting for the moment the structure of the shareholders and that of the Romanian agency’s business, according to their representatives -, this is going to result in the establishment of a new branch within Romanian brand consulting: brand guardianship, as Enterprise calls the services it renders to the Vodafone brand. But not only the concept of ‘brand guardianship’ finds it difficult to establish itself on the Romanian market, also the brand consulting business itself develops with great difficulty in Romania – the number of this type of companies is very small – Brandient, Branzas, FutureBrand, Grapefruit – and their 2005 turnovers do not exceed the amount of EUR 1.5 million put together. This value does not include the branding expenses that the companies integrate to their advertising costs. Should the incipient stage of this market in Romania be the very element having determined both Enterprise IG and another multinational, Interbrand, to chose Romania? Bogdan Branzas, managing partner with Branzas Design in Cluj – the agency claiming to have entered into a long term partnership agreement with Interbrand – seems to have a positive answer as to his partner. As to the business purposes of Interbrand in Romania – as well in Central and Eastern Europe generally – he says that Interbrand concluded this partnership in Romania because they sensed the ‘potential of this market’. A potential insufficiently used, he admits, when it comes to the less firm presence of Interbrand in Romania, in terms of opening its own branch in this country, bringing capital in an existing business (the Branzas case, for example) or performing business franchising. Interbrand, on its turn, also explains: ‘Except for Moscow where we have our own branch – we don’t have offices in any other country’, states Jurgen Hausler, CEO, Interbrand Zintzmeyer & Lux (Zurich branch of the company) for BUSINESS Magazin. ‘For the moment it is strategic to adopt the local partnership pattern. In the branding business local features are essential – these features that only local partners are able to master. Local know-how, combined with the experience in international branding as well as with the advanced work methods tested on many markets are doing a good team within brand consulting businesses’, also added Hausler. The methods mentioned above include strategic elements. As for Interbrand it is well known the brand valuation instrument successfully used in transactions. ‘We have carried out more than 3000 brand valuations so far, whereas our methodology counts among the 3-5 globally major ones’, also said Hausler. If Brandient has already implemented a common project with the British partner Enterprise IG (the Domo rebranding), what was the result of the partnership concluded between Branzas and Interbrand? ‘We shall be able to reveal our project publicly within this year’, promises Branzas. Enterprise IG officials promise to make of Romania a hub of their businesses in this area. But why did the British choose to work with an independent partner and not with a sister company from the group, WPP? This is how the competitor advertising group, Interpublic, did – they chose that the branding division, Future Brand, should be integrated into an advertising agency from the group, B.V. McCann Erickson (whose manager, Bogdan Enoiu, is also a major shareholder within Future Brand & Associates). ‘I was associated with the famous specialists of the Romanian branding’, says Simon Bailey from Enterprise IG. Branding multinationals’ coming into Romania – together or not with global portfolio brands – also brings to attention another aspect: local agencies are starting to think of a new business pattern. Whereas so far people of the field had been focusing on creating Romanian brands’, from now on global brands are also taken into consideration. Also consulting in the case of the Romanian brands registering success over the border is another important aspect.

Brand guardians working together in Romania

Two names of the global branding – Interbrand and Enterprise IG – have already stood out in Romania, by means of the partnerships signed with two local players (see the tape). Other important names in the field are Landor Associates (part of the same communication group as Enterprise IG WPP), McKinsey and Accenture – two companies whose core business is business management consulting, but also having developed abilities and working instruments in branding too.

NAME: Interbrand PART OF: Omnicom advertising group, also including the advertising networks BBDO, TBWA and DDB. In Romania Omnicom has, for the moment, business only in media and advertising agencies, and not yet in branding. PORTFOLIO: Among the international brands for whom Interbrand rendered / has been rendering various services one may quote BMW, Deutsche Telekom, FIFA, Gillette, IBM, the Juventus football club, National Geographic, Nokia, Samsung or Roll-Royce. LOCAL PARTNER: Branzas Design, based on a long term contract, claims the agency. This partnership does not include for the moment Interbrand’s participation in the Romanian agency’s shareholder structure or in its management, neither in the business franchising. One of Interbrand’s most important assets is its brand valuation instrument counting among the top 3-5 major globally known and recognized methodologies, stated Interbrand officials for BUSINESS Magazin.

NAME: Enterprise IG PART OF: WPP advertising group, also including the advertising networks Ogilvy, Grey, JW Thompson, Y&R. Like Omnicom, in Romania WPP has for the moment business only in media and advertising agencies. PORTFOLIO: Among the international brands for whom Enterprise IG rendered / has been rendering various services one may quote Castrol, Credit Suisse, Deloitte, Ericsson, Peroni Nastro Azzuro, Shell, Skandia, Vodafone and Xerox. LOCAL PARTNER: Brandient, based on an association agreement having as an object ‘the supply of brand strategy, design and brand engagement services both in Romania and the Republic of Moldavia (for the moment)’, says the agency. This partnership also does not imply Enterprise involvement in the shareholder structure or in the management of the Romanian agency, neither in the business franchising. One of the company’s distinctive features is its association with the brand Vodafone, whose guardian Enterprise claims to be at the level.