Enterprising people always find their way.
Most CEOs begin to assume that to succeed in the business world you have to have a great brand. Branding doesn’t make it easy, it makes it possible. And cthe more I get to know the CEO of a company, the more I understand the success or failure of their brand.
Great brands achieve their iconic status, become a post-modern TOTEM, when a company understands, feels and lives its brand, and how it should influence the day-to-day running of the business.
It is much more than people’s perception of your organization and your products. It is the soul, it is the personality of your business and, therefore, it has to manifest itself through everything you do and everyone you do.
Brand building needs an organizational-level mindset and culture, which requires time and investment to create. The most effective way to accomplish this is to define precise brand-building objectives and associated responsibilities, assign these responsibilities to the right people and empower them to do whatever it takes to achieve the objectives.
This is a stage where boards/directories can play a more effective role in empowering teams by providing guidance and strategic direction to individuals around the cultural and organizational factors that need to be managed successfully.
Many people believe that the construction of a brand is just a matter of of chance, ideal conditions or sheer luck. But nothing could be further from reality.
Brand building is a medium-term/long-term initiative that requires understanding and convincing everyone.
The company tends to have an easier time aligning itself with a purpose, a culture, a set of values.
This is because a brand can be used as a strategic compass, guiding you on how you have to build your corporate culture, how to live the values and how to extend this to design processes or marketing or communication campaigns, to the experience.
Because a brand is built every day, every day, and when you forget it is when the decline begins.
However, out of ignorance or neglect, most organizations leave their branding efforts in the hands of a single department, which often generates very few results.
The companies that have truly succeeded are those that have understood the importance of extending this responsibility to the entire organization.
Brand building is not simply about running a newspaper ad, a Google campaign or putting up a billboard. What most leaders fail to see is that every employee has many important touch points with stakeholders that are complex in nature and have a profound impact on the company’s brand.
We often forget about the security personnel at the head office entrance, the purchasing team communicating with suppliers, the human resources staff interviewing candidates or the finance staff dealing with banks or funds.
Even the driver of the company-branded vehicle becomes a vital part of the brand story with its many stakeholder touch points.
In other words, all these people are no longer ambassadors for the .brand. They are the brand name.
This means educating all stakeholders. Every worker must understand how their actions impact, how they can accurately represent it and enhance its value through their daily work. Therefore, one of the challenges of building a great brand lies in getting your entire company to present itself as a united front.
You can have several departments that deal with customers, yet you must integrate fully and uniformly across all of them. Thus, it is incumbent to seek growth and change that is in line with your purpose, vision, mission, values and culture.
This human interaction plays an important role in building perception. It is a critical means for stakeholders to validate what the organization communicates through one-way, often inanimate and
impersonal communication channels, such as an advertisement or billboard.
Boards, through strategic and tactical initiatives, should assist in the creation of a customer-oriented mindset within the organization.
How you make your customer/consumer feel is your brand.
It is about understanding and having the ability to predict, sometimes create, consumer needs and preferences.
Having this capability is fundamental to building a successful brand. A brand must be able to satisfy the functional and emotional needs of its consumers through effective positioning and excellent performance.
Without knowing your customers, these aspects cannot be achieved. Building a customer-centric culture, both internally and externally, is essential.
It is very important that the vision and mission to make the organization customer-centric comes from the board with the CEO at the helm.
Boards can help establish this critical mindset by facilitating the implementation of an operating model that enables and delivers customer focus. This level of change can only occur when boards recognize the need to build a brand and the associated capabilities that are required.
Living the brand should be a top-down exercise. Senior executives must stand wholeheartedly for what the brand stands for and lead by example.
Essentially viewing the brand as an investment and not an expense.
The most valuable companies in the world agree on one thing: a valuable brand. A valuable brand is not an expense, it is an investment. Because a valuable brand: Attracts talent Increases profits Increases profitability Improves reputation Boosts the sense of belonging
A brand is not a marketing method, but an invaluable tool to inspire and activate your organization, generate higher levels of engagement, attract and retain talent, expand margins and make complex strategic decisions.
Always keeping in mind the importance of believing in the purpose and living it, transmitting and feeling the values, the culture and, in short, building a real, genuine and transcendent connection.
In addition, generating a good customer and employee experience through generosity, empathy and commitment.
It bears repeating: Branding is not a department, nor a position; it is everyone in the company, from the CEO to the latest recruit.
It is therefore necessary to align this understanding at all levels and at all levels of the company.
Because it is the soul of what they do, how they do it and, above all, why they do it. Caring for it, pampering it and feeling it is an essential part of any successful company in this new era.
The role of boards of directors in building strong brands is growing substantially. Companies need strong, human, effective and clear leadership from the top on how to build strong, transcendent, successful brands. The need for action has never been more compelling than it is today.
Branding experts agree: Those who continue to invest in their brand will be better positioned for growth when the economic situation improves than those who have cut their budgets, as was already the case in previous crises.
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