Leading a Brand-Driven Business Transformation

1. Executive Summary

Between 2009 – 2014, with mobile growth stalling, Ericsson repositioned itself from telecom-hardware leader to “Networked Society” transformation partner. Mobilising 100,000+ employees under unified brand governance, the pivot lifted revenue from $27 B to $33 B and brand value by 49%. It also secured new vertical deals with Maersk, Volvo and others, proving brand as a catalyst for business transformation.

2. Business Challenge

By 2009, Ericsson faced a critical inflection point. Mobile subscriber growth was plateauing globally, while future opportunities lay in connecting industries, machines, and societies through emerging 5G, IoT, and automation technologies.

However, market perceptions remained locked on Ericsson as a traditional telecom-hardware vendor focused on mobile infrastructure and consumer devices. This positioning gap threatened the company’s ability to compete for lucrative industrial and societal connectivity contracts in shipping, automotive, energy, and other verticals.

The CEO and executive team recognized that technological capability alone wouldn’t secure this transformation. With 100,000+ employees globally and established customer relationships worth billions, the brand itself needed to become the strategic catalyst for repositioning the entire organization.

Key Question: How do you mobilize a legacy technology company’s entire brand ecosystem to lead—and win in—the era of industrial and societal connectivity?

3. Strategic Response

The global brand team was tasked not with refreshing Ericsson’s identity, but with engineering a strategic transformation—positioning brand as the connective tissue between corporate ambition, customer engagement, and employee belief.

The team’s approach centered on five imperatives:

• Develop a strategic brand platform rooted in the Networked Society vision
• Align the brand with the company’s business transformation roadmap
• Build a global brand governance model to drive consistency and scale
• Shift brand perception from communications to business activation
• Create internal ownership of the brand—making every employee a brand ambassador

Brand was reframed as a business and transformation tool, not a marketing activity.

4. Key Initiatives and Execution

• Global Brand Strategy and Investment Case
  • Built cross-functional alignment around a unified brand platform
  • Gained full CEO and executive management team endorsement to drive investment and change
• Brand Identity and Messaging System
  • Developed a new brand identity anchored in simplicity, boldness, and digital fluency
  • Created messaging platforms that linked purpose, technology, and business impact
• Internal Brand Enablement
  • Launched the Ericsson Brand Ambassador Program to mobilize 100,000+ employees
  • Equipped leaders, managers, and teams with brand activation tools
• Business Integration
  • Embedded brand into product design and launches, service delivery, customer engagement, and leadership communication
  • Integrated brand KPIs into regional and BU-level performance scorecards
• External Activation
  • Rolled out a unified brand experience across events, digital channels, media, and partnerships
  • Shifted from claim-driven marketing to purpose- and outcome-led storytelling

5. Results and Outcomes

6. Frameworks Applied

• Hatch & Schultz VCI Model
  Ensured alignment between vision, culture, and image; drove cohesion between internal values and external perception
• Brand Identity Prism (Kapferer)
  Used to define brand personality, culture, and tone across global expressions
• Brand as Business Framework
  Treated brand as an operating system—not a campaign—driving cross-functional integration

7. Pitfalls and Lessons Learned

1. Misunderstanding Brand as a Marketing Activity

Brand is often siloed within marketing or design—limiting its ability to influence transformation.

Lesson: Reframe brand as an enabler of business and transformation. It should shape how the company thinks, behaves, and grows.

2. Failing to Integrate Brand into Operations

Without integration into systems, governance, and KPIs, brand remains aspirational.

Lesson: Embed brand into the way decisions are made, performance is tracked, and success is measured.

3. Over-Indexing on Visual Identity While Under-Delivering on Brand Experience

Many brand transformations focus on logos, colors, or taglines—while neglecting the deeper work of embedding brand into how the company shows up across products, services, people, and behaviors.

Lesson: Brand is delivered through the total experience—what customers see, feel, and interact with across marketing, sales, service, product, and employee behavior. Start with purpose and delivery. Identity should express the brand—not replace its execution.

4. Underestimating Local Adaptation Needs

Global brand strategies often fail when they’re too rigid to work across cultural or market realities.

Lesson: Balance global consistency with local flexibility. Equip regions with adaptable tools and governance, not just rules.

5. Treating Brand Rollouts as Events

Without reinforcement, brand momentum fades after launch.

Lesson: Treat brand as a long-term operating shift—not a one-time campaign. Build rituals, rhythms, and renewal mechanisms to sustain it.

8. Ideal Use Cases

This case is ideal for organizations that want to:

• Use brand to support strategic transformation and repositioning
• Align culture, strategy, and reputation in large-scale change
• Activate purpose internally and externally across functions
• Elevate brand from a messaging layer to a business driver

Applicable for:
Companies undergoing business model change, M&A integration, or reputation redefinition in competitive markets

9. Key Insight

Brand is not what you say—it’s what you do, and how it brings everything and everyone together in a company.

When treated as a business and transformation tool, brand becomes a catalyst for culture, innovation, and long-term value creation.

10. References

• Hatch, M. & Schultz, M. (2008). Taking Brand Initiative
• Kapferer, J.N. (2008). The New Strategic Brand Management
• Davis, S.M. & Dunn, M. (2002). Building the Brand-Driven Business
• Aaker, D.A. (2014). Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant

11. Appendix: Framework Critique and Limitations

Hatch & Schultz VCI Model

Strength: Focuses on internal-external alignment
Limitation: Assumes stability—less effective in fast-moving market environments or when external perceptions shift rapidly

Brand Identity Prism (Kapferer)

Strength: Offers depth in identity construction and tone of voice
Limitation: Can become abstract or overly conceptual without business translation

Brand as Business Framework

Strength: Drives brand integration across strategy, operations, and culture
Limitation: Requires long-term executive sponsorship to sustain execution across functions