Brand Leadership Magazine  ·  Case 10 – SCA Tork

Leading Global
Brand Management

Interview with Frida Ohlander, (former) Global Brand Manager, Tork

In recent years, Frida Ohlander has been working to develop Tork into a global brand. The assignment has involved establishing a Global Brand Management Team, developing a new brand platform, and an intensive pursuit of insights among distributors and end customers.

From European success to global ambition

For a long time and with strong profitability, SCA has built the Tork brand on the European market. The first registration of the Tork trademark was made back in the 1960s ahead of the launch of A-tork — an innovative product and by far the best industrial wipe on the market, which quickly made it a success.

Following the success of A-tork, SCA continued to launch new products using Tork as a suffix in the various product names. SCA also steadily expanded the content of its range by acquiring European companies with complementary products in their portfolios. To consolidate the offering to the market, the decision was ultimately made to use Tork as SCA's common brand for hygiene solutions, aimed at professional users on the European market.

A global brand team

To grow beyond Europe, SCA continued to acquire other brands in strategic markets around the world. To get full leverage from these investments, the decision was made to take the next step and invest in a single global brand. Based on the previous success and the well-established position on the European market, the obvious choice fell on Tork.

In line with moving from a multi-brand strategy to a single-brand strategy, work began on phasing out the local brands and replacing them with Tork. At the same time, management — both centrally and locally — needed to shift focus from product sales to the sale of complete solutions. The strategy of offering customers complete solutions — that is, product systems, training and other more knowledge-intensive services instead of products alone — is a long-term commitment to move away from price competition in an increasingly competitive market.

This strategy has meant that the Tork brand has needed to be repositioned both in the market and internally. It has therefore been necessary for the organisation to gain a deeper understanding of both customers' businesses and needs, as well as the needs of their customers in turn. To lead the development of the brand, a Global Brand Management Team (GBMT) was established.

– When SCA decided to make Tork a global brand, an intensive process of brand strategy development began within the business area in which Tork operates, says Frida Ohlander. Due to our long and solid history on the European market, there is an internal pride and loyalty to the brand. Most employees in Europe know the story of Tork and that the brand's development is part of SCA's strategic work to position and differentiate itself as a modern hygiene company. To ensure that all parts of our new global organisation would have the conditions to develop the same sense of ownership of the brand, establishing the GBMT was enormously important, she explains.

The GBMT meets continuously and makes strategic decisions concerning the development of the Tork brand. Through its members and local ambassadors, the group also receives direct feedback on how the local work of implementing the strategy is progressing.

A segmentation project

Since the brand management assignment is not only to consolidate and develop Tork's standing as a global brand, but also to simultaneously position Tork as a customer-focused brand offering complete solutions, the strategic brand work was preceded by an extensive segmentation project. The work resulted in the business now focusing on developing and marketing products and services towards five customer segments: hotels, restaurants, offices, industry, and healthcare. Using these five segments as a starting point, GBMT then developed a new brand platform.

As with many other companies making a shift from product to customer focus, the internal challenges became apparent.

– We are definitely on an internal journey of change through our brand work, says Frida Ohlander. The change is a major challenge for everyone who works with the Tork brand. To use an internal description, it is about moving from a "close to factory" mentality to a "close to customer" mentality. Historically we have been very product- and production-focused. The new strategy requires a completely new approach to how we engage with our customers, she says.

Support from senior management

It is easy to fall back on communicating only product features when that is the established tradition, so the value of having a strong brand is communicated internally whenever the opportunity arises. The message that strong brands are an important part of SCA's business strategy is also communicated from the very top of the organisation.

– Our strong brands contribute value to the business by giving us more loyal customers, and a strong brand protects us from drowning in a sea of similar offerings on the market, says Frida Ohlander. Focused brand management creates the conditions for Tork to consolidate a unique global position that is relevant to our customers and thereby increase our competitiveness and earning potential.

Strategy under consultation

In the new brand platform, Tork is described as the brand that best understands customers and best solves their specific needs. Since the new brand platform would, among other things, govern the future development of products, services and marketing communications for a global market, local buy-in was an important part of the process. On several occasions the brand platform was sent out for consultation to senior managers in the various regions to get their views on how the brand should evolve.

– One challenge in the work of making Tork global is that the conditions and maturity levels for this type of change vary across different markets. To create the best possible conditions for managing this challenge, the GBMT was staffed with brand and marketing managers for each respective region. This significantly facilitated the development and implementation work. Using SCA's overall business goals and strategies as a base, we were able, with the GBMT's help, to gather views and suggestions for changes from those responsible for each customer segment and region. It was also a way of continuously anchoring the brand platform, explains Frida Ohlander.

SCA as the endorser

The SCA brand and the Tork brand have different roles in the market. While the Tork brand primarily stands for hygiene solutions for the professional market, the SCA brand is the endorser of innovation and sustainability.

– It is not the job of the Tork brand to carry SCA Group's overarching messages, but the synergy works well, says Frida Ohlander. Tork can maintain its clarity and respond to more specific customer needs within hygiene, while SCA adds values around sustainability and through its scale.

Differentiation through innovation

To secure long-term value creation, SCA's strategic innovation work and brand development are based on global trends and insights into tomorrow's customer needs. SCA therefore devotes considerable resources to market and customer analysis, and the insights generated are directly linked to the company's innovation and product development processes.

To further ensure that all dimensions of the brand platform — including personality and emotional values — are integrated into Tork's product development process, Frida Ohlander initiated a review of the existing process. The various evaluation and decision points within the product development process were examined from a brand perspective, resulting in the process being supplemented with a number of additional steps.

"Successful innovation work leads to greater differentiation, which ultimately strengthens SCA and the Tork brand."

— Frida Ohlander, Global Brand Manager, Tork

– Given the shift we want to make with Tork, it is important to ensure that the brand's DNA is built not only into the physical products, but also into our services, explains Frida Ohlander.

Customer visits create insight

The Tork brand is sold through distributors, and Frida Ohlander explains that in recent years she has made over 100 external visits to distributors and end customers. At the same time, she has interviewed a large number of employees around the world.

– To gain good customer insight, reading reports is not enough. Those of us at head office also need to get out and visit our customers. If we are going to get our distributors to sell complete solutions, we need to understand how they work and what needs their customers have, says Frida Ohlander. The insight we gain when we are out in the field is invaluable also in the internal implementation process. Having visited customers and different markets gives you credibility and strengthens the internal brand message. As a brand manager in a large organisation, you must be prepared for pockets of strong opinions that require well-founded and documented reasoning.

A brand-driven organisation

To create a brand-driven organisation, central brand management together with the GBMT has initiated a range of different implementation activities. Training is one way to ensure that the brand platform functions as a natural starting point for everyday decisions and actions, and has therefore been a central part of the implementation work. Using a train-the-trainer approach, ownership of the strategy was distributed to different parts of the organisation and to different countries.

"To succeed, a global brand must have a degree of flexibility built in so that it can be relevant to different segments in different markets."

— Frida Ohlander

– Ownership of the strategy must exist out in the organisation. We also understood early on that to succeed, there must be a certain flexibility built into a global brand for it to be relevant to different segments in different markets. At the same time, we naturally cannot become everything to everyone, says Frida Ohlander. The fundamental feeling, personality and customer benefit must be the same wherever you come into contact with Tork. That has been an important message in our implementation work.

In the implementation work, SCA has, in addition to the train-the-trainer method, used role-play, dialogue exercises and various types of workshops. The implementation has so far encompassed key managers and marketing teams in the various regions around the world. Next in line are all of the company's sales staff. For external partners, such as communications agencies, a Brand Day is organised every year. The purpose is to review and anchor shared strategic goals, and to specify activity lists to ensure that all key partners have a complete overview of future visions and objectives. The brand strategy and all communications material produced during the year are also reviewed.

– Here we get the opportunity to display and discuss what is on brand and what is not. Because communications material is so concrete, it becomes a very clear, interesting and sometimes perhaps slightly painful process. Since the goal is to create a leading global brand with a unique position, we must ensure that the brand's expression and identity are the same in all touchpoints with the market, says Frida Ohlander.

Knowledge transfer

The Tork brand encompasses a wide range of products and services, and one of the challenges in building a unified brand has been to transfer knowledge of a leading market's offering to other markets in an effective way. In the US, Tork has long been the leader in solutions for the restaurant segment, while in Europe Tork has held a leading position in public restrooms. It has therefore been a priority in the internal implementation work to ensure that knowledge and experience are transferred from each leading market to other markets. In this way, SCA has been able to develop global expertise that can offer customers the most attractive solutions for their specific needs.

– Our ability to spread knowledge between markets naturally contributes to building the Tork brand globally, because the differences in how the brand is perceived in the various markets are gradually evened out. Another advantage is that we can bring innovations to market more quickly. An effective launch process contributes to significant cost savings, which is yet another positive consequence and a way of capitalising on our global brand work, explains Frida Ohlander.

Future challenges

The future leadership challenge for global brand management is about continuing to develop a focused and differentiated complete offering to satisfy needs in the professional hygiene space, but also about distributing brand-building resources across a range of different areas.

– To further capitalise on our global brand, we need to be able to manage and satisfy the needs of mature markets within rapidly growing economies, in combination with managing an increasing share of global business. We must also continually find new and smart ways to satisfy our end customers and initiate activities to create a pull effect in the market, concludes Frida Ohlander.

About the Company

SCA develops, produces and markets personal hygiene products, soft tissue paper, packaging, publication paper and sawn timber products, selling its products in more than 100 countries and employing approximately 45,000 people.