In most organisations, the brand – its health, its architecture and even its tracking results – are still viewed solely as a marketing function. The common belief remains that marketing departments are considered the only custodians of a business’ successful brand health.

But this can be argued on two levels:

Powerful brands significantly outperform the market.

Compared to a Morgan Stanley Capital International World index investment, the world’s 40 strongest brands returned twice as much to shareholders.

As such, limiting ‘brand’ solely to the marketing division and not to the broader business could restrict a business’s future potential/success. 

A brand isn’t just a logo or pretty pictures. 

It’s how we look, speak, behave, and interact with our customers. Brands need to create and reinforce trust, familiarity, and positive associations, much like a personality. Doing so will drive a level of ‘stickiness’ that keeps customers coming back for more.

Having previously worked on large-scale business transformations for clients including Toyota, Caribou Coffee, and McDonald’s, we have seen what strong brands can do to a business’s bottom line. 

In our experience, the most successful brand tracking results come from those who empower all their staff, divisions & functions with a responsibility to ensure the brand is considered in all that they do. 

Every staff member, from the CEO through to the frontline salesperson, should view themselves as a ‘brand advocate’ and bear the responsibility of ensuring this ‘intangible’ thing called brand — which now contributes to 90 per cent of the intangible value of a company – is embedded, lived and breathed throughout the business.

In recent years – mainly due to COVID – many businesses have seen ‘cost cutting’ measures and ‘efficiencies’ result in a downward trend in marketing headcount and dollars spent. 

This has resulted in time-poor staff and overstretched resources, throwing their reduced budget at fragmented, ad-hoc initiatives— with no north star, framework, or anchor point to align decision-making and investment, which seems counterintuitive to us.  

Every consumer-facing brand has a range of touchpoints or ‘interaction’ moments that shape a customer’s experience. Over time, these ‘moments’ either improve or detract from a brand’s strength. Companies that invest in CX are said to be three times more resilient than CX stragglers.

The decisions that led to a touch point’s creation most likely hailed from a range of cross-disciplines in an organisation. From a website’s UX to the friendly voice of a customer service representative to the unboxing moment of an online delivery— every touchpoint should offer an experience that is shaped by a decision that someone or several have made.  

So, it stands to reason that everyone in an organisation needs to think about the brand and how it’s embedded in everyday life to increase the company’s value. This cross-functional understanding of the importance of brand will often see an organisation’s brand tracking soar. 

Between 2016 to 2019, Toyota Australia undertook a significant brand transformation project that saw staff across the business ensure the ‘brand’ was deeply embedded throughout the organisation. 

This involved re-calibrating how its teams were briefed on the business, its ambition and values and took an ‘inside-out’ approach – effectively delivering a rebrand internally two years before any external change was made. 

In doing so, Toyota experienced record-breaking results, including— Most Trusted Automotive Brand in Australia 2020 and the highest ever result for brand satisfaction for Toyota dealers.

The Power of The Brand

• • A brand is a consumer’s total experience with a recognisable product.
• • A brand is powerful and is the core identity of a company that can make or break it.
• • An intangible asset, a brand carries a value, but that value is difficult for investors to put a number on.
• • The three main ways to value a brand are stripping out the assets, product to product, and the intensive approach.
• • The power of branding can help a company triumph in a price war, thrive in a recession, or grow operating margins and create shareholder value.

With all of this in mind, it might just be time to think about the brand’s future within your organisation a little more deeply. You never know; your actions and investment in the brand might just see those tracking results soar to record highs.

To learn more about how CSMG digital can help bring your brand to life so that it has real value to both your organisation and your customers, talk to us at support@cloudseamediagroup.com