Almost one year ago I participated in a contest called Investor Team Challenge arranged (of course) by Investor themselves. The contest is a strategy game that initially was produced for internal use to give the employees a better understanding in the new strategy that was undertaken in 2005, but one year later used in order to promote Investor and its new strategy externally. The challenge was announced among universities all over Sweden, and students with medical, economical, law or technical background from different parts of the country came to compete for the first time in spring 2006. My team was one of the 15 teams competing and by the end of the tournament day we happened to win the contest.
During the evening dinner the price was announced and it turned out to be a lunch with the Management Group of Investor. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend the lunch arranged for my group last year, therefore I was invited to join this year’s winner group instead.
So this Friday I came to Investors Office to receive my award! The environment was as I remembered it from the competition day; huge impressive bright rooms with old-fashioned antique furniture. Together with the other three students I entered the dinner room and shortly after the Management Group made their entry.
The lunch passed as I was imagining it before: a little stiff conversation led by the management, some embarrassing silence and of course the obvious bragging coming from the students attended in order to secure the future employment. But, something was said during that lunch, something that actually got me thinking, something that is the reason to why I am writing today… This “something” was said by Börje Ekholm as an answer to a question about what Investor gains from arranging this kind of challenges. (Unfortunately the quote will be slightly modified, since I didn’t take any notes during the lunch, but I assure you that the content is perfectly correct)
"First of all it’s a great way to brand Investor externally. The students attending the challenge get a chance to try how it is to be a part of the Management Group of Investor for one day and learn a lot about our strategy and other important everyday issues. At the same time we get to learn a great deal about the students and therefore our new generation. Not only about their behavior and habits as a consumer, but also as the future employee. No matter what branch or company they start working for after school, we will still be able to maintain a good relationship”.
In other words Investor tries to brand their name among high educated students so that they get a positive connection to the name and company as a whole. Most likely this positive association will, in a couple of years, be brought into relatively high positions (thanks to the high education) in all different types of industries, which in the long term will benefit Investor and its business. Simply Investor creates their “own” people to be spread out among all industries and therefore ease the investing process.
I was amazed by the answer, since I have never heard about such a thorough way of branding before. But I can’t deny the fact that it seems to be a clever and effective form of branding. “You can't teach an old dog new tricks”, but you can certainly indoctrinate the young peoples’ brains with a message that will stay there forever. Right or wrong? Well, it’s up to you to decide, my question is: Is this the new way of branding?
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