Managing a brand is a full time role and can be a challenging one. One that will vary depending on the organisation size and whether you are an owner of the business or an employee.
If you are running a company as a CEO or MD and manage the brand, then in someways this can easier because you have the vision and ambition for where you want to take the company and can control all aspects of it. However, this is normally applicable to the younger start-up businesses or SME’s. A national or global brand will likely have brand managers in-house and they will be fully trusted to ensure the brand is managed effectively. Brand managers will be responsible for overseeing all communications such as advertising, design and any events the company will be visible at, making sure that brand is consistent across all touch-points. This position will often sit above or alongside the Marketing Managers or Directors at a global level, or this will form part of the marketing director/managers role for smaller brands. Sometimes when internal resources are limited or stretched, businesses will engage brand agencies like us to be their brand managers and act as the overall guardians ensuring consistency is maintained.
What’s important regardless of the organisations size is that the brand is managed properly and the business has someone internally or externally keeping it focussed, ensuring everyone involved in the marketing of the brand both internally and externally is not diluting, confusing or devaluing the brand in any way.
Below are a few pointers to help you manage your brand more effectively:
Porsche recently launched an SUV to its product line that has damaged its sports-car position in the market, a strange move from a brand that for its entire existence was known for producing one of the most iconic sports cars on the planet. Imagine Ferrari adding a 4×4 to its range! It just doesn’t work. Porsche has massively devalued the brand by trying to win profits following the trend of other car brands producing SUV’s.
Before deciding on launching a new product or service offering make sure it fits with your overall brand position, otherwise you will cause longer term damage. Engaging a brand consultancy to help you make informed strategic decisions would help ensure that whatever direction you take will benefit the brand in longer term.
A creative design and branding professional, I help businesses transform, stand out, and achieve.
Drawing on my frontline experiences at agencies across the South East, I founded Frost Creative to…
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