Brand Purpose and Engagement

Leveraging Anniversary Milestones

In 2014, I set out to find the brand truth for the world’s oldest science and technology company, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. I was the head of Anniversary and Milestone programs for a leading public relations agency. I specialized in building brand platforms and executing their launch through the establishment and management of a blended multi-agency and internal client task force. New to the science and healthcare sector, I immersed myself in research, conducting stakeholder interviews, business analysis, competitive audit, social sweeps, best practices in advertising, trade shows and sales. What emerged was the picture of science communication as an area ripe for breakthrough.

The power of relentless questioning

A 3-Year Roadmap

I created a 3-year roadmap to take employees from viewing themselves as a part of three separate and silo’d companies in North America to seeing themselves as one united part of a leading, global, German science and technology company, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

The learnings from development through every implementation drove many improvements across the global organization and laid a strong foundation for changes underway today.

  • Launched external partnerships

  • Brought new collaborative innovation processes across sectors

  • Built internal expertise in digital stakeholder engagement and content publishing

  • Created templates for events, large and micro, as catalysts for change

  • Established brand positioning and employee engagement benchmarks

  • Created social impact programming in STEM / Curiosity Cube Tour which is now a global program

Building Blocks for Acceleration

Working to keep the task force laser focused on the program outcomes helped everyone to come to alignment on how to prioritize the dozens of costly requests for “anniversary expenditures” flooding into our program office. One important first practice put in place is a strategic filter for use in selection criteria for projects that fall within an anniversary program. If this is not done early and well with top executive sponsorship, the dollars are at high-risk for amounting to little more than a nice anniversary dinner event. To make an anniversary transformative takes discipline, governance, processes and ingenuity. For this program on behalf of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany the task force team accomplished many important achievements.

  • An anniversary or milestone can be an important lever for many business changes. What needs work? Start with the list and don’t limit it.

  • A cross-functional project team led by an experienced anniversary expert can help to drive a cohesive, energizing and memorable change management plan

  • Once you’ve built the concept, be willing to let it fly. Employees in every expert function will breathe life into a good brand position