Why Brand Building Starts At the Top

No one needs to ‘be the brand’ more than the CEO, argues Allen Adamson, Managing Director of preeminent strategic brand and design consultancy Landor Associates.

I have to admit I was a bit naïve. When I set out to write a book on what makes for brand success today, I wasn’t fully prepared for the amount of research it would take. But as one interview and discussion led to another, it occurred to me I was having a really good time. In fact, it was sort of like an extended virtual reunion, providing me the opportunity to reconnect with former clients, former bosses and mentors, and lots of former and current industry colleagues. The conversations that led up to BrandSimple were filled with shared experiences in the business of brands and branding, as well as an incredible number of new insights. I talked at length to the best in the business about what has changed relative to the industry over the past several years, and what hasn’t. While each conversation included some aspect of what has made building a brand a bit trickier – the world has become more cluttered with brands and more inundated with information – two fundamental themes kept emerging.

First of all, everyone I spoke to agreed with my premise that what once made for brand success still makes for brand success – namely, that the best brands are based on things that are different and relevant and that whatever makes them different and relevant is made simple for consumers to understand. From coffee to electronics, banking to airlines, make it simple for people to ‘get’ what your brand stands for and what it means to them and they’ll be able to pick you out in the crowd.

The second theme that emerged over and over in my conversations and interviews had to do with the role CEOs play in brand building. More specifically, if an organization’s leadership doesn’t intuitively ‘get’ what the brand means (as visibly demonstrated through strategic decisions) there’s good reason to be concerned about the brand organization’s leaders. A company’s long-term value is incumbent upon an understanding of what it means to ‘be the brand’, and a CEO must ‘be the brand’ better than and more ardently than anyone. For a brand to succeed, it must be clear that the company’s business strategy is aligned with its brand strategy. And as the company’s leader, the CEO must prove on a daily basis that he or she ‘gets’ this basic tenet of brand management.

Like most people in my position, I receive lots of calls from potential clients, CEOs among them, who tell me they need help with their brands. The competition is biting at their heels and they’d like to understand if their brand is positioned effectively. Maybe an innovative, up-start of a company has entered the market with a promise that seems unbeatable and the enquiring CEO knows there’s got to be a way to beat it – but doesn’t see how. It might be that a merger is in the works and they’ve got to unite two organizations. Which name should they keep? Should they create an entirely new name? How do you bring two cultures together without alienating one or the other, and without confusing the marketplace? Or it might be that the CEO feels the execution of its brand message – it’s branding – is getting musty and the company wants to take a more novel approach without undermining the brand’s equity.

I tell these clients, including the CEOs among them, that while they’re asking some very good questions, there’s one absolutely critical question that must be asked first. Is the idea on which their brand is based crisp and focused? Do they understand what the brand represents to both the internal audience (the employees) and the external audience (the customers)? I explain that before any other brand issue can be addressed, the issue of what the brand stands for in the minds of both employees and consumers needs to be dealt with. The idea that drives the brand is the first order of business. Start here and, chances are, answers to other concerns will fall into place.

By way of quick explanation, a brand is something that exists in your mind. It’s an image or feeling. Branding is the process of getting people to feel one way or another about a brand. It’s the logo, the tagline, the signage and the advertising, certainly. But, branding is also the customer service, the product design, the packaging, the directions that are written on the packaging, the website, the blogs, the public relations, the viral, guerilla and every other form of communication that now exists or will ever exist. Branding is any interaction or experience that is an expression of the brand. The more crisp and focused the brand idea, the more effective and efficient the branding. Given that branding is now an organization-wide responsibility (it stopped being marketing-centric a while ago) it’s essential that every employee in every cubicle and office understands what the brand is meant to represent and can intuitively create the appropriate branding expressions.

Strong brands like FedEx, GE, Starbucks, Pepsi, Bose, Apple, Timberland and BP are considered leaders because of the relevant and unique experiences they offer their customers, yes. But, it’s also because these experiences and corresponding branding expressions are consistent and familiar in approach and feel no matter where a customer interacts with a brand. The CEOs of these brand organizations recognize that engaging the internal audience in the brand idea will ensure alignment around a common goal, and that alignment starts at the top. The leaders of these organizations live the brand, and lead by way of example. Not only do employees set stake by this but so, too, do Wall Street, the media and the competition. I’d say that any exhibition that the CEO is off-brand is grounds for concern from Wall Street and grounds for delight from the competition.

Although the activities involved in getting an organization on board with a brand idea may seem like an expensive proposition, consider the idiom ‘penny-wise and pound-foolish’. The effort may cost you money upfront, but you’ll make up for it 10 times over as you build and manage your brand. The true value of understanding the meaning of your brand and getting your employees gainfully engaged will become obvious when you compare that cost to the cost of making up for employees who have no idea how to deliver the brand promise. While the idea of ‘being the brand’ may sound like a cliché, employees who can’t be the brand may actually put their companies at risk. CEOs who can’t be the brand may put their jobs at risk.

Among the people I spoke to about this issue was Mark Fields, former President of Mazda and now President of Ford Motor company, who was brought in to get the Mazda brand on track and the employees reengaged. “Mazda had walked away from its roots,” Mark told me. “It was trying to be everything to everyone, allowing the competition to define it instead of defining itself. It was clear we needed to get back to a strategy of differentiation.” Mark explained how, after working with employees from across the organization, along with its advertising partners, it uncovered what he referred to as the “Holy Grail of branding”. “Zoom, Zoom,” he said. “It was a simple, evocative line that encapsulated the brand idea we were looking for.”

In order to help everyone get it, Mazda invested time and money to help its employees intuitively understand what “Zoom Zoom” meant when it came to delivering on the brand idea. They asked employees in every department how they would deliver “Zoom Zoom” when it came to product development, or manufacturing, or sales. The company even incorporated the brand idea into employee performance metrics. I’ve found time and again in my work that employees can only shape relevant experiences for the brand’s customers if they, themselves, understand why what they do is relevant. Companies invest tons of money in their brands. They have a financial imperative to protect this investment. The first line of defense is the CEO.

Tactical executions of a brand idea become almost easy when the driving idea behind a brand is not just different and relevant, but simple and focused. An idea that is simple and focused is easy to get. The bottom line to a company’s bottom line is that the CEO must get the brand like nobody else, and must be the brand like nobody else. As I said earlier, and as I show through numerous examples in BrandSimple, the CEO is a brand’s most important spokesperson and its most critical branding role model. Brand success starts at the top. If you’re at the top, you might want to get the book.

Allen Adamson’s book, BrandSimple, is available from Palgrave/MacMillan. For more information, please visit www.brandsimple.com.