Brand Management Today

by Brad VanAuken The Blake Project

Branding goes as far back as recorded history. However, in the modern era, outside of brand
identity development, branding activities were largely confined to consumer packaged goods
companies such as General Mills, Kraft Foods, Nestle, P&G and Unilever. Then, in the mid-tolate 1990s, companies began to realize that their corporate brands were assets of great value that
needed to be managed and leveraged. This is when companies started creating brand
management positions at senior, and sometimes even corporate officer levels in the their
organizations. I was the beneficiary of this movement at Hallmark Cards, when I was named
Hallmarks brand czar (not my real title).
Since that time, municipalities, universities, museums, professional trade associations, sports
teams, churches and even individuals have gotten into the branding act. Talk of brands and brand
positioning has become ubiquitous within our society.
Today, when we are asked to facilitate brand positioning workshops for organizations, the
workshop participants are almost always the organizations CEO and his or her staff, not the
marketing department (although they participate). Further, increasingly, we are asked to
facilitate a mission, vision, values workshop for the company just prior to the brand positioning
workshop because the two activities are closely linked for organization brands. I have also
written about the need to touch organization-wide communication, training and development,
organization design, recruiting, performance appraisal, budgeting, capital investments, customer
service design and other functions as a way to ensure that the organization delivers on the
promises that it makes. These activities are clearly outside of the scope of a typical chief
marketing officers role and responsibilities.
I am arguing that for organization brands, brand management has become an activity of the
CEOs office. That person may delegate the responsibility to the chief marketing officer or the
vice president of brand management, but the CEO must understand and be conversant in brand
management and marketing to be able to do this. Gone are the days of a marketing specialist
working with an ad agency account executive to guide the course of the brand. Yes, these people
still have work to do, but it is much more tactical in nature, because the strategy for an
organization brand is so intertwined with the strategy for the organization itself that it is difficult
to separate the two.
Increasingly, in my brand strategy consulting role, I draw upon my Harvard Business School
competitive strategy courses to work at the intersection of brand strategy, business strategy and
business model strategy. This is not the work of creatives, but of a business strategist.
For instance, in crafting brand strategy, we dont just take into consideration each target audience
and the benefits or values that are the most unique and compelling to them. We also consider the
revenue, profit and ROI share and growth rates for each target customer/product-service cell in
the matrix. Further, we take into consideration the types of competitive markets, barriers to entry,

exit barriers, strategic intent of the organization and the ability of a particular brand position to
create space for future growth in additional product and service categories.
Branding at a corporate level requires a much broader skill set not only in terms of functional
breadth and analytical skills but also in terms of influencing and persuasion, because unless you
are the CEO, there will be much you will need to do to ensure a healthy brand that will not be
under your direct control.
Brand management continues to evolve and those who manage brands must evolve as well.