Many larger organizations regularly move personnel round to gain broader experiences, and organizations of all sizes often bring in new hires to manage businesses. While fresh perspective is great, fresh eyes without historical understanding can lead to repeated errors or lack of true innovation.
Back when we started our careers, brand managers at companies like P&G were required to create a 3-ring binder brand book that contained all the key facts about the brand and its history. This book of essential learning was passed along to the next manager to ensure continuity of understanding. Today, there are reams of reports and learning, but typically it’s scattered across multiple sites and archived boxes, so new managers have to search for the key learning while they’re expected to start driving the business.
To ensure the key learnings aren’t lost to the future, consider creating a narrative of the brand history: details about the brand and why the choices were made, what worked and didn’t work and why for product and marketing initiatives, competitor moves and how they impacted the brand, etc. Then, to ensure the story stays updated, add another chapter as the starting point to the annual planning process. That will offer the perfect day 1 immersion to everyone who’s new to the brand create a solid foundation of understanding to drive future growth.