GROUP ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION

Section A: Group Details

Assignment No: 3
Batch: IIMP
Session Day: Thursday
Group Colour: BLUE

Section B: Assignment Details

Assignment Topic: Selling the Brand Inside
Training Topic: Internal Branding
Submission Date & Time: Wednesday-1:00 pm

Section C: Group Members

No. Name Div& Roll PC PN AB GRADE

No.
1 Shivanthika Murugan C-37 Y A
2 Mrigakshi Dang C-14 Y A
3 Shailesh Soni C-56 Y A
4 Satyajit Sangamnerkar B-51 Y A
5 Ashish Agarwal C-4 Y A
6 Rajendra Galagate B-15 Y B
7 Saurabh Dange A-14 Y A
8 Nilesh Atpadkar A-5 Y B
9 Randhir Kumar Singh B-54 Y A
10 Mohan Pande B-41 Y C
11 Sanjay Gaikwad B-14 Y A
12 PragyaNema B-39 Y A

Remarks: Blue team visited Kotak Life Insurance and met

Mr. Chetan Suryavanshi and learnt various practical applications of internal
branding and the efforts undertaken at Kotak Life Insurance to keep the
employees satisfied as a happy employee relates well to a satisfied customer.
 CAREER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

ASSIGNMENT NO. 3
“Selling the Brand inside”
-By Colin Mitchell

“You Can‟t be a Brand Ambassador if

You Don‟t Know The Brand”

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 Harvard Business Review

„Selling the Brand inside‟

-By Colin Mitchell

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 „Selling the Brand inside‟
You tell customers what makes you great.
Do your employees know?

Colin Mitchell joined Ogilvy & Mather in 1999 as lead Planner on IBM. He
started his career as a trainee Planner at BMP in London. Colin has worked
on many of the agency's classic case histories, including BP and Cisco.

Learning’s from the article:

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 THREE PRINCIPLES

I. Choose your moment

Turning points during which ideal opportunities can be created for an
Internal Branding campaign.

Eg. Mike Harper, President of ConAgra Foods, led that organization’s brand evolution.
After suffering a heart attack in the early 90’s, Harper realized that he needed to adopt a
healthier lifestyle. When he examined the foods that ConAgra and others made, he was
surprised to learn of their high fat content. So, Harper decided that ConAgra Foods
would develop and market more nutritious and healthy products. As a result, the
Healthy Choice brand of frozen dinners was introduced to consumers.

II. Link Internal and External Branding

“The employees need to hear the same messages
that you send to the market place.”

Eg. The Body Shop brand is characterized by a strong commitment to being

environmentally friendly. So, employees receive regular updates on the environment
through training courses and newsletters and are also encouraged to share what they
learn with others.

III.Bring the Brand Alive for employees

“An emotional connection has to be created to allow
employees to have the brand vision in minds.”

Eg. JRS Consulting conducted employee focus groups for a client that had recently laid
off 10 percent of its workforce and wanted to determine how to re-engage remaining
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employees. A research revealed the pride that employees felt about the unique heritage
of their corporate brand. This pride formed the basis of an emotional benefit that
employees associated with their now struggling employer — feeling proud to be a part
of the overall organization, even when the business environment had become extremely
challenging.

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 Part -A
COMPANY VISITED
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 About Kotak Life Insurance:
Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Ltd is a joint venture
between Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd., its affiliates and Old Mutual. A
company that combines its international strengths and local advantages to
offer its customers a wide range of innovative life insurance products,
helping them in taking important financial decisions at every stage in life
and stay financially independent. The company is one of the fastest
growing insurance companies in India and has shown remarkable growth
since its inception in 2001. Kotak Life Insurance employs around 5,565
people in its various businesses and has 197 branches across 141 cities.

Person we met: Mr. Chetan Suryavanshi

Designation: Assistant Branch Manager

PRODUCTS PROVIDED BY KOTAK LIFE INSURANCE:

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 Kotak Life Insurance- Present Internal Branding

• Internal memos, brochures: They are circulated among the

employees informing them about what is happening in the financial
market and thus allows employees to be updated.
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• "Tide with Pride"-online magazine: It is a monthly magazine which

connects all employees across the India. It is to inform all employees
about the best performing zone, staff, etc.

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 • Mc Kinsey Consultancy Survey: “Gallop” was an exercise
conducted by Mc Kinsey consultancy for better performance of
employees which led to ‘TURNING POINT‟. They come up with
suggestion of:

i) Online Feedback for employees

ii) Festive atmosphere in work environment for 365 days of the year

iii) Brochures and posters in work environment

• Social Outings (CSR activities): Employees on a regular basis are

taken for social outings which involves CSR activities. Thus, keeping
the moral of the employees high allowing them to loyal to the brand.
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 Part B

Application of the Article:

„Selling the Brand inside‟

“Understanding why if the brand is

not loyal to itself,
Why would the customer be loyal to
the brand?”
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 Internal branding is a process by which employees internalize the desired
brand image and are motivated to project the image to customers and other
organizational constituents. The messages employees take in and process
influence

 the extent to which they perceive their psychological contracts with

the organization to be fulfilled
 the degree to which they understand and are motivated to deliver the
desired level of customer service

Why an employee as a brand ambassador:

 The employee ambassadors know what makes the company great.

 The employee brand ambassador knows that it affects his or her job.
 The business brand ambassador hears stories of how the company
helps the customers and can repeat these.
 The business can run contests for best brand ambassador, and they
are not only getting better marketing results, but also boosting
morale.
 An Employee as a Brand Ambassador works for you. So they do not
say yes then forget about the business. They are there every day
and will stay more top of mind about it.
 Using the Employee Ambassador system actually helps you build
content that will be producing results for the business even after the
employee brand ambassador has left the organization.
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 Suggestions:
 In the future, as the insurance sector heats up due to the competition,
the company, Kotak Life Insurance, should consider their star
performing employee or a top management official being filmed in an
advertisement assuring customers about the various products and its
benefits.
 Find senior level executives who already participate or sees the
value in participating in social technologies to drive engagement and brand
awareness. By senior leader example, employees will better understand
their role to drive company attitudes, beliefs, actions and values.
 Have Kotak Life Insurance brand ambassadors personalize the
organization by talking about their (or of others that they know) own
experiences with your products, solutions or services. It’s okay to have a
social media ambassador empathize with someone who has a poor
customer service experience.
 Print-ad campaigns may involve happy employees thus delivering a
message across to customers that the internal branding is the same as
external branding.
OR
When asked, whether any concessions on Kotak Life
Insurance‟s products are provided to employees, the HR personnel
answered in negative. Thus we may suggest that if an employee is
provided with certain concessions and on usage, he may be able to put
forth the products benefits in a better way.
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OR
 Corporate employees can be the organization’s best brand
ambassadors. This means that an army of employees can be
dedicated to communicating the company‟s key messages and

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 building its brand reputation online through blogs, Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
The Marketing department can work with the Human Resources
Department to create a list of brand “keywords” so that your employees
can use these them consistently throughout their social networks.
Our suggestion is based on the following example:
E.g:- Best Buy commercials advertises Twelpforce, a Twitter service that
enables Best Buy employees to talk with customers instead of, to them.
Best Buy, recognizing that their employees are their best resource,
“opened its customer service Twitter feed, Twelpforce, to any of its hourly
store employees and salaried corporate employees who want to join.
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 QUESTIONNAIRE

1.’ Employees have the potential to make the brand alive’, does Kotak Life
Insurance believe in the statement.
2. What are the forms of internal communication used by Kotak life
Insurance? If they are used, what are they used to communicate?
3. Have you ever conducted internal surveys among employees to gauge
their interest towards the brand value, or any required change in company’s
management brand?
4. Your tagline is, ‘ZINDAGI SE EK KADAM AAAGE’, do your employees
believe in the tagline?
5. Has Kotak Life Insurance designed any ad campaigns involving their
employees like Intel?
6. Has Kotak Life Insurance highlighted any success stories of any sales
manager?
7. Are employees feedbacks conducted? If conducted, how frequent are
they conducted?
8. Recently has there been any change in the top management? Were any
new policies introduced thereby?
9. What are the various activities conducted by Kotak Life Insurance, to
keep the morale of the employees high?
10. Does your company provide any concessions for any of the products to
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your employees?

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 LEARNINGS FROM THE ASSIGNMENT

While working as a group for the assignment we learnt various practical

applications of internal branding and the efforts undertaken at Kotak to
keep the employees satisfied as a happy employee relates well to a
satisfied customer.

REFERENCES
1. Kotak Life Insurance
www.kotaklifeinsurance.com
2. www.retail-tv.com
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