Aligning teams around one story
Read more on the Rivian case study
Outline
00:00
Importance of brand story alignment
Chris from Parliament explains the importance of having a unified brand story across all teams and departments within a company. He highlights that marketing, product, retail, and service teams often have differing versions of the brand story, leading to fragmentation. Without a shared foundation, the brand risks inconsistency and confusion.
00:26
Cross-functional collaboration at Rivian
Cross-functional teams from various locations, including Silicon Valley labs, Detroit headquarters, and Illinois manufacturing facilities, were engaged early in strategic work. Workshops, interviews, and working sessions revealed differing brand perceptions and conflicting stories. Leadership collaborated with these teams to create a unified platform that resonated with everyone involved.
00:47
Creating a companywide brand foundation
The result of the process was more than a marketing document; it became a foundational element for the entire company. Proper alignment requires involving a diverse group of voices from the start rather than creating a story in isolation and then distributing it. The platform, system, and language must be pressure-tested with those who will use them to ensure they can withstand real-world use. Alignment means shared ownership of the collective story, not just agreement on a presentation slide.
Transcript
Hey friends, it’s Chris at Parliament.
If each team or department within your company has a different version of your brand story, you need to get aligned. Marketing talks one way. Product talks another way. Retail and service talk a third way. Maybe somebody’s wrong. Maybe somebody’s right. Perhaps you’re all just working from different assumptions and priorities. Either way, without a shared foundation, your brand will be fragmented by default.
When we worked with Rivian on their very first brand platform, we brought cross-functional teams into the strategic work really early. In their case, that included people in different locations—from their labs in Silicon Valley to their headquarters in Detroit to their manufacturing facilities in Illinois.
Workshops, interviews, and working sessions with different groups revealed how each group saw the brand and where their stories clashed. We worked with their leadership and these different teams to develop a platform that everyone could see themselves in.
The result was more than just a marketing document. It was a companywide foundation.
If you want alignment, you can’t build a story in one room and then hand it off to everyone else. Invite a diverse set of voices into the process. Pressure-test the platform, the system, and the language with the folks who are actually going to use them.
Alignment is not just an agreement on a slide. It’s the shared ownership of your collective story. Make sure the platform can survive contact with reality.
All right, that’s it for me. Be brave. Stand apart.