Product and image branding are just as important internally to your employees as externally to your customers. That is, your employees must recognize and embrace your branding strategies just as much as your customers.

Unilever Bestfoods Netherlands (UBF NL)—one of the largest international manufacturers of widely recognized food, home care, and personal care brand products—understood this key element and implemented a document management and knowledge management system (called Livelink Skins) for its employees.

According to Teun Potjewijd, an IT manager for UBF NL, “The Livelink Skins solution has helped Unilever Bestfoods Netherlands develop a unified way of working. It has improved internal communication and has helped create a stronger awareness of our new internal brand identity among our employees.”

Livelink is actually a series of Web pages on UBF NL’s intranet. Those Web pages present all employees with a standardized interface including document, news items, and discussions that all reflect UBF NL’s branding efforts. As employees access the intranet to perform any of their work, they immediately see items related to branding efforts.

When undertaking branding efforts, don’t forget that your employees need to be as brand conscious as your customers. Knowledge management systems can help.