How important is branding to the management of your company?
Brands are a key differentiator in the competitive environment and provide guidance for employees and reassurance for consumers in terms of tradition, quality standards, and image. Their importance within the company is reflected in the position of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at group management level and the group-wide networking of all those responsible for branding and marketing. The local freedom of country managers is limited when brands are used in several countries or product categories.
How does the brand help you manage your company and make decisions?
Brands determine the attitude of the company and the mindset of its managers. With good brand management, they prevent opportunistic individual decisions and force goal-oriented, long-term thinking. They also clearly document the value of the company.
In your opinion, what are the mistakes in brand management that should be avoided?
Brands are artificial constructs created by people that are not bound to a static brand core that has been defined once and for all. By clinging to outdated internal ideas, a brand can lose its relevance. What a brand represents is not defined by the brand owners, but by the users. With very heterogeneous users, there are only subjectively perceived brand cores, which can differ from one another when taken as a whole. Those who fail to recognize this will fail to communicate effectively with their customers.
What advice would you give other companies for brand management?
90% of brand management consists of renunciation, which requires the art of saying no. There are too many ideas that may not do any harm, but are also of no use and jeopardize the clarity of the brand's image. Focus and radical consistency in brand management are becoming increasingly essential, as brand owners are now just one stakeholder in brand communication. Whereas messages used to be sent unilaterally, today there is more communication about a brand. Those who do not try to manage this process flexibly and transparently will lose brand sovereignty.
Which company do you admire for its brand management?
That depends on your perspective....
