Being ‘Brave’: How Shire Pharmaceuticals nurtured its unique culture from a simple brand idea

‘Uniting employees and building a culture to create a distinctive brand positioning and focusing company talent on an agenda for growth’. These were the goals of a wide-reaching communications and brand strategy driven by global biopharmaceutical company, Shire. The initiative is one element that has contributed to the company's rapid growth over the past several years. It enabled the organisation to integrate acquisitions effectively, galvanise employees around a patient-centred philosophy and ensure it focused clearly on developing the right treatments for patients’ unmet needs. It has also created a solid foundation for the business to adapt and build on in the future as it emerges as one of the standout companies in the pharmaceutical industry. Beginning as an exercise to describe the core ethos and differentiating DNA of Shire, the programme was rapidly adopted by employees throughout the company. This paper describes the journey that was taken, the elements that were considered, and some of the hurdles that were overcome. It is an account of how a brand becomes a culture and how the external promise within a brand proposition can truly live up to the internal reality.