The power of product pride

Read some interesting research done by Interbrand in this month’s Brand Strategy magazine, which looked at the power of "pride" in the company you work for in driving growth.


The first key finding is that feeling proud of the company you work for is a drives other positive behaviours with the potential to drive growth. Specifically, a 10% increase in pride drives the following changes:
– Employee loyalty: +9%
– Telling others organisation is a great place to work
– Putting in extra effort: +7%
– Recommend the company’s products and services: +7%

So far, no big surprises I guess. What is more interesting is what creates this organisational pride.

When people were asked directly, the top factor was "fair pay compared to competition", followed by "making a positive impact on peoples’ lives". However, when the researchers looked at which factors actually correlated with increased pride, they found a different result. The most important factor by far was "products and services are seen as the best". Fair pay dropped to 9th place, and was half as important as great products/services.

Yes, that’s right. Its the good old "Sausage" again! If you want to engage your people and make them proud, don’t invest money in fancy internal communication shows, or try making inspirational speeches. Invest our time and effort in making the product or service better. When you think about it, this makes a whole lot of sense. The people working for Innocent, Apple, Harley Davidson, Virgin and other great companies love the products they make, and actually use them. Contrast this with other less successful companies where employees only use the product because they get it for free.