Getting Your CEO to Buy In to Branding

Welcome to the debut column from Hampton Bridwell, president of BrandLogic (www.brandlogic.com), an identity consulting and communications agency based in Wilton, CT.

There’s been a sea change during the past 20 years in the way we value corporations. According to the McKinsey Quarterly, in 1984 the top 150 companies in the world were valued as such due to the 75% of their worth viewed as hard assets. Today those companies’ hard assets account for only 36% of their equity; the remaining 64% are intangible assets. And leading the list of those intangibles are goodwill and brand.

Here’s where the chief marketers come in. Marketers haven’t always had a C-suite role with other executives who had bottom-line responsibility. But the emphasis on intangible assets today shows that the marketing officer does indeed have a critical role in the C suite, and that role does create revenue and shareholder equity. The chief marketer is there to drive return on intangible assets. Chief marketers own the brand image and the branding process, and this is where they can have their greatest impact.

But as you already know, to really build a brand you need to enlist the CEO as your biggest supporter. How do you demonstrate to the CEO the potential for success that proper branding promises? Here are a few tips:

Show how branding builds shareholder value. One of the CEO’s prime objectives is to increase shareholder returns. The chief marketer can provide tools to help achieve that goal. In the branding process, you have the opportunity to strip away the layers of your business and increase clarity by uncovering the piece of the business that is actually creating value. A business’s value creation core is often hidden to other top-level executives and shareholders; they might not know it or see it, or perhaps they have forgotten about it. An example? Think about how GE got away from its roots in Edisonian innovation and how it’s gotten back to that–and how the whole company has revitalized earnings as a result.

The chief marketer’s opportunity, in the brand-building process, is to expose the essential core of the business and then help the CEO make decisions about how the business should be shaped going forward, based on the true value creation core. With that clarity of vision, the CEO can create momentum. Employees will know what they’re supposed to do, how they’re supposed to operate, what they’re operating against, and how they can deliver according to the unique value proposition–and they will be able to provide customers with products and services they hadn’t thought of providing before.

Demonstrate the value of a brand in attracting top talent. CEOs are faced with obtaining top talent; the brand can be a key tool for attracting well-educated high-level employees–the people who can really make a contribution. The brand can show that a particular company embodies the attributes a highly desirable employee desires.

With American corporations becoming primarily knowledge based and distributing manufacturing and R&D around the world, the competition for top-level talent is hotter than ever. If you’re seeking to attract and retain employees who will add knowledge capital to your company, you’ll need a brand that articulates a vision, an opportunity, and a future. And the chief marketer can enable that.

Remind the CEO that a strong brand engenders customer loyalty. And, of course, we all need loyal repeat customers to make the whole thing work. Every CEO in the world should agree with this. Yet because it’s so simple, it’s often overlooked. Nonetheless, just because this is a Marketing 101 concept, that doesn’t mean customer loyalty shouldn’t be nurtured whenever possible. Branding is one of the key tools in this process.

So what happens if you lay out these three pieces and your CEO still thinks brand and the branding process is nothing but fluff? Then it’s time to use the same thing that has worked since high school: peer pressure. Show your CEO what peer companies are doing with brand and explain that the companies that concentrate on branding are the ones making the greatest strides in the global economy.

Need examples? Talk about how Lou Gerstner revived IBM with strong branding, how Steve Jobs uses branding to simultaneously shape pop culture and build up Apple and Pixar, and how Michael Dell has used branding to enable Dell to take over the home and office PC market.

These CEOs are actively accessing the chief marketer’s brand leadership to drive value into intangible assets. C suites that are energetically involved in shaping the brand are driving shareholder return, building momentum, increasing employee loyalty, and attracting partners. And the chief marketer has the best seat in the boardroom to make it all happen.