Earlier this week, I spoke on “Gaining the Competitive Edge: How Companies Drive Business Growth by Operationalizing Their Brands without Huge Marketing Budgets” at the Marketing Forum. The workshop outlined the “brand as business” management approach — that is, the deliberate and systematic management of the business around the brand — thinking of the brand as the business. (You can read more about the workshop here.)
I took the participants through the differences between using a brand as a marketing asset and using it as a management tool — I invited them to complete this assessment of their organizations to help them identify where the biggest gaps might be. I invite you to take the assessment and let me know the results.
Based on the discussion in the session, it seems like a lot of companies are not realizing the full value of their brands. One notable exception was IBM — their marketing director described how they have distilled their brand into clear values and attributes and are always working on driving them into their services, R&D, etc. It was great to hear about their efforts and their success. You go, Big Blue!
Shows that there is still a lot of work to do, and many opportunities for companies to improve their business. Thank you for the links, Denise, interesting to read about the workshop and to see the assessment.
This is a central point that we have had a startling view of for the last 5 years. We’ve bought 9 brands and reviewed the purchase of at least 300 brands during that time period. In all of our analysis we started from the brand first, then evaluated if the business was built around the brand or around the fixed assets. In the vast majority of the companies we looked at, the cultures, values and management expectations were all built around the fixed assets, not the brand assets. We have always felt and continue to feel that this management focus and style doesn’t lead to the greatest value. As Jacco says – still much work to do and opportunities for businesses to improve.