Brand and communication in the defence industry
Why now is the time to act
Jean-Marc König
Managing Director
The German and European defence industry has not exactly been in the public eye in recent years – you could almost say decades. And as in many German B2B industrial sectors, little has happened on the brand front at most defence companies for a long time. But as everyone knows, times have changed: defence and security are back at the heart of society. That leaves defence companies facing a whole range of new challenges, including around their corporate brand and communication. Reason enough to take a look at the key drivers.
Particular demands on the employer brand
With crisis zones moving closer, demand has risen not only for European defence equipment but, along with it, for qualified staff. And even though the political will to rearm is increasingly there, the highly qualified people needed to develop and produce modern, high-performance weapon systems cannot be conjured up overnight. A wide range of professions is in demand, above all engineers with relevant training and experience, ideally ready to start straight away. Because that species is in short supply, competition for the available experts is fierce.
The competition for highly qualified specialists makes a strong employer brand more important than ever.
Companies therefore need to answer a broad set of questions clearly and tangibly, and bring those answers together coherently in the corporate brand, so that they can take effect at every level of the business – not least in every communication activity. Employer branding should not be treated as separate from the corporate brand, but understood as an integral part of it. This may mean examining your own identity and positioning, and either sharpening it or redirecting it. It also calls for a clear overall corporate strategy, because brand strategy is an important part of business strategy. Only when these two strategic starting points are well aligned can they realise their full effect.
Shifting brand landscapes through acquisitions and changes in corporate structure
To strengthen defence capability, the German and European defence industry is expected to make full use of its potential, develop innovative systems and scale up production capacity significantly within a short space of time. To that end there have been, and will continue to be, acquisitions and the consolidation of business units – for example to integrate specialist know-how into a larger company, join forces and focus on what makes sense.
Acquisitions and consolidations do not just change organisations – they change brand landscapes too.
Acquisitions of this kind require the technical activities to be merged and integrated. They also require the strategic framework and the administrative apparatus to be brought together. A company may also restructure its activities, for instance by recombining divisions, which changes something in the existing brand architecture. Ultimately all of these measures serve to strengthen the company as a whole, but they call for a well-planned brand transformation alongside them. To avoid the high costs of a complex brand structure, it is often advisable to simplify the existing brand landscape, for example towards a strong masterbrand with no or only a few sub-brands.
10 benefits of simplifying your brand architecture:
Lower general operating costs
Savings on personnel costs
Reduced marketing spend
Greater impact from marketing activities
A simpler user journey
More efficient internal processes
Increased responsiveness & agility
Better use of existing resources
A stable foundation for future M&As
More consistent brand impact
Rethinking brand and communication
Until now, a considerable share of communication in the defence sector took place at B2B level: communication with politics, public authorities, associations and the military, for example. That circle has widened significantly, and communication is increasingly aimed at individual citizens too – potential employees, the politically interested member of the public, and investors. Communication with society is also evolving, particularly in the places where defence companies are based. Defence companies are keen on good relations and support among the local population, which shows for instance in increased sponsorship activity. A prominent example, with international visibility, is Rheinmetall’s involvement as a sponsor of Borussia Dortmund.
These developments may mean that the departments responsible for brand and communication need to be reorganised, because in some cases new expertise and experience are needed in the company and the strategic and operational framework for communication has to be rethought – in terms of both content and structure.
The need for efficient brand-related processes
Because of the developments described above and the new demands on the brand and its communication, processes within the company have to be redesigned or at least adapted. That need is even greater in companies experiencing significant growth, because beyond a certain point the existing (brand-related) processes are no longer sufficient and have to be rethought completely in order to remain effective. The need to deploy financial means and human resources efficiently also underlines the demand for efficient processes – across the company as a whole just as much as in brand and communication.
Reviewing and, where necessary, redesigning brand-related processes helps to save costs and resources and to make sure the available means are used efficiently.
The partner landscape
Because the demands on brand and communication have changed and the company may be growing, the requirements for external partners such as creative and communication agencies or employer branding agencies change as well.
Selecting suitable agencies should already follow a predefined process and the right criteria, to minimise the risk of costly wrong decisions. Companies that have grown quickly in particular often face the challenge that their agency management has not grown at the same pace. Finding the right external service provider is always the first hurdle. The second hurdle is shaping the collaboration as well as possible from the outset – after all, agency costs are a major cost factor.
An efficient, well-planned collaboration makes a decisive contribution to keeping a project on budget and on schedule while delivering high-quality results.
The right BrandTech tools as part of a future-proof digital ecosystem
To do their work efficiently, employees need a sound digital ecosystem – one that includes the right BrandTech tools. That makes it possible, for example, to produce creative material in the usual formats quickly, with little effort and at a good level of quality. The nice thing is that the initial investment in the right tools usually pays off within a short time, because it delivers considerable savings in working hours and ultimately in costs across every department, while the quality of the results stays high.
Taking all of this together, it becomes clear that many companies in the defence industry need to act when it comes to brand and communication. Done successfully, it strengthens the company and allows it to use its resources for what really matters: the security of us all.
Want to know more about brand and communication in the defence industry? Then download our free guide (in German): ‘Marke und Kommunikation der Rüstungsindustrie’.
