Brand Management is More Than Logos, Taglines and Ad Campaigns

When I have joined organizations to head up their brand management or marketing functions, others in those organizations have often conveyed to me that my primary role must be one of the following:

  • Advertising

  • Naming

  • Logo management

  • Creating brochures

  • "Air cover" for the sales force

  • "Putting a pretty face on the product"

Having been immersed in brand management for such a long time and with the recent pervasive coverage of brand management in the general business press, it amazes me how many people still don't "get" what brand management is all about.

A brand is the personification of an organization, product or service. It is the primary source of a relationship with a customer. It builds goodwill/equity over time. People are loyal to brands, not products or services. Your brand's equity is the result of the total sum of the experiences that people have with your brand, from its ads, its retail experience, its purchase, is use, its support services and its myths and legends.

Think of a brand as a person. You want others to be attracted to you. You want them to enjoy being around you. You want them to admire you. You want them to trust you. You want them to consider you to be a good friend. You want them to deeply care about you. You want them to say nice things about you to their friends.

So what are the most important duties of an organization's lead brand champion?

  • Ensuring that the CEO shares the primary brand champion role with you

  • Ensuring that the brand has a carefully crafted mission, vision and promise

  • Maximizing relevant brand differentiation

  • Ensuring that the brand has an attractive personality

  • Making sure the brand stands for something important to the target customer

  • Making sure all employees understand what the brand stands forAligning organization

    strategy with brand strategy

  • Creating and sustaining organization-wide passion for the brand's mission,

    vision and promise

  • Ensuring that the organization delivers against the brand essence, promise and

    personality at each point of contact the brand makes with employees, customers,

    shareholders, the press and any other stakeholders

  • Ensuring that the brand acts with consistency and integrity

  • Maximizing the target customer's awareness of the brand

  • Infusing the brand with relevant innovation

  • Keeping the brand alive and "vital"

Strong Brands Require Vision

A brand is much more than a logo or an advertising campaign. It is the manifestation of an organizational vision. In my experience in working with organizations from Fortune 500 companies and Internet start-ups to universities and museums, the one ingredient that must be present for the organizational brand to be truly successful is a clearly articulated, strongly felt and universally embraced organizational mission and vision. And that usually requires strong leadership at the top, and to even greater effect, throughout the organization.

That mission and vision is often based on powerful intuition or a strongly held conviction. Frequently that intuition is informed by careful and detailed analysis. Ideally, the mission and vision focus on a deep consumer need that the organization has unique abilities to meet. That mission and vision should be strongly encoded in the organization's mission and vision statements and in the organizational brand's stated essence, promise and personality.

The entire organization should be designed to deliver on that mission and vision. And, there should be mechanisms in place to reward behavior that promotes the mission and vision and averts behavior that sabotages them.

Yes, the business' financial model must make sense. And yes, the organization must change over time to adapt to changes in the market. But, the underlying sense of mission and vision must not falter.

I talk a lot about the nuts and bolts of various brand management sub-disciplines (e.g. brand research, brand positioning, brand identity standards and systems, and measuring and managing brand equity), but all of these must be focused on delivering against a well thought out and a widely and passionately held sense of organizational mission and vision. If they do, there will be no stopping you in your ascendancy within your market space.