BRANDING AMP UP YOUR BRAND TO MAXIMIZE VALUE

— BY JANE CAVALIER —

BRANDING IS NOT what you may think. When executives consider branding, especially those with strong financial experience and limited marketing exposure (a classic CFO), they often see an expense with questionable ROI: a logo, tagline, website, marketing materials.

While these are tools for delivering and building the brand, they are not the brand. The brand is a deliberate mental framework with a set of perceptions that resides in the mind. It is a result of brand-building actions and creates value by influencing decisions. That’s the priceless value of a powerful brand—almost invisible influence. It’s why Warren Buffet recommends investing in companies that have a powerful brand.

Emotional Influence Makes a Difference

People are making decisions about your business all the time. If you want to influence their willingness to try something new, give you a shot, overlook the imperfect, buy more, pay more, cut you a break—an emotional advantage tips the scale in your favor.

Your brand is a mental filter that affects how people think and feel about your company, products and people. It shapes how people interpret what they see and what they are willing to believe, accept and forgive. Johnson & Johnson has saved hundreds of millions in downside costs and produced even more in revenues with accelerated adoption of new products, by leveraging a brand built on the pure bond between a mother and child. That essence softens the edges and keeps people predisposed in J&J’s favor.

Experts say up to 90% of decisions are based on emotion. From Wall Street to Main Street, people use their “gut” and take pride in making up their own mind. They even refute facts and authority when feelings are strong. Powerful brands help people to see things in a specific way. They define a context and make people feel. Think John Deere, Nike, Chanel, the U.S. Navy, Yeti, Apple. Even tiny brands in niche markets wield enormous authority.

More Control Over the Human Side of Business

As a leader, you’ve experienced more change these days than your predecessors did in decades. You face challenging times fraught with emotional volatility. It is a VUCA world—volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The pandemic, Great Resignation, war in Ukraine, remote work, supply chain disruptions, and extreme weather have businesses scrambling to keep up with constant changes in human behavior. You can address these shake-ups with a powerful brand so they don’t shake down your business. Convey calm in stormy times. Provide warmth in a cold market. Deliver clarity in a sea of confusion. This is how to break through to people so they remain by your side and behind your business in an upside-down world.

Branding is less about marketing and more about business strategy and control. It is a strategy to consistently influence people from the inside out. Branding is soft power, not hard power. If you want to influence customers, partners, employees, regulatory authorities, journalists or anyone who can affect your business, think about the value of having a brand filter in place to shape perceptions and emotions. Alternatively, think about how not setting that mental construct and allowing the market or competitors to define it, creates risk.

Don’t let lack of time and resources and outdated legacy thinking stop you from doing everything it takes to influence the people who make your business live or die.

Jane Cavalier is founder and CEO of BrightMark Consulting, best-selling author of The Enchanted Brand, Amazon, and a business strategist who has helped build powerful brands like Snapple and Qwest. Learn more at www. brightmarkconsulting.com.