In some organizations, branding is a bad word. If your company needs marketing to prove their branding efforts and you find yourself fighting the view that marketing is only synonymous with advertising, listen up. While branding may include marketing managing advertising, it is so much more than that. Branding delivers value across the company and it is crucial you speak of branding value in terms that non-marketers understand.
One tip in talking with executives resistant to “branding” is to talk about branding using different terminology. I suggest you use reputation management instead of branding to better explain what marketers are striving to do for the company. Building and protecting your reputation really gets to the heart of branding for non-marketers.
An executive who thinks about branding in terms of reputation management will often be more supportive of what marketing can do for their company and place a higher value on these efforts. When a company and an executive’s own reputation is at stake, attention to how marketing can help will heighten.
So the next time you face resistance to branding initiatives, try to talk in more personal and grounded terms by talking about how your branding efforts will protect and build the company’s competitive position through reputation management. That’s a bottom line we all can live with!
Thoughts? How have you communicated what marketing can do for your organization?
1 comment