Let’s talk about who owns your brand.
Many marketing experts describe what a brand is by first listing what it’s not. Let’s skip that and go straight to a general definition:
A brand encompasses everything related to a product that influences a desired customer to buy it instead of a competing product.
A quick caveat: while I’d be quick to argue my definition is supported by research and reflects the dominant thinking in the field, marketers don’t have a universally accepted definition of what constitutes a brand.
Most marketing thought leaders adhere to the broader type of definition I use because it helps productively frame how to think about and discuss the concept. In particular, I like the way it helps us reconsider who truly owns a brand in two distinct and important ways. First, it recognizes that companies don’t technically own their brands.
Yes, you own a lot of valuable intangible assets that are vital to your brand, such as the name, logo, etc. But the brand itself is owned by the people involved in deciding whether to purchase your product. It’s an immaterial, collectively owned, ever-shifting jumble of thoughts, feelings and opinions, and while you can act to influence those things, you can neither fully control nor own them.
Valuable side note: If you sincerely care about your brand, your actions should reflect that you respect and value the people who do own it.
While you may not be able to own your brand, you do need to work to manage it. That leads into my second point: who takes ownership of those efforts?
The traditional approach folds brand management into marketing, but let’s quickly consider some things that might influence your brand under our broader understanding of the concept.
- A poorly designed product feature creates problems for users.
- Insufficient customer service resources make it difficult to obtain support.
- Incomplete information on your website raises a hurdle to learning about a product.
- Slow responses from your accounting department frustrate customers’ purchasing personnel.
- Poor facility maintenance results in an unprofessional appearance when customers visit.
- A salesperson routinely overpromises with regards to expected results, leading to disappointed customers.
- Mistreated employees anonymously share criticisms of your company on public forums.
Even with that fairly short list, we establish that your brand can be impacted by essentially every member of your team.
In 2021, it’s simply unrealistic to think that any one department or external partner can be fully responsible for managing your brand. Certainly specific aspects can and should be assigned to your marketing team, but building a strong brand requires effort across the whole of your organization.
Or to put a different spin on the same point: In today’s world, marketing alone cannot ensure a healthy brand. Marketing can’t shield your brand from things like a shoddy product, poor service or a toxic internal culture. Nor should it.
So what should you realistically expect from marketing when it comes to your brand? We’ll cover that in our next discussion on The Back Porch.
Have comments or questions, or need some help crafting compelling authentic marketing for your brand? Don't hesitate to reach out to us at info@fact-house.com or use our contact us page to get in touch.
