Occasionally there is a reluctance to fully embrace brand development by a business’s most senior management team. Whether it’s viewed with as a ‘pink and fluffy’ marketing function, a term I have actually heard, or a lack of faith in any tangible ROI.

However, in this piece, written from a rather different angle, I want to turn it on its head and look at corporate brand as the one of the most valuable assets a boardroom has in strengthening its control over every aspect of the business.

A brand is different things to different people. To a brand romantic: it can be considered the personality of any product, service or organisation. To the consumer on the street it might translate as a guarantee of quality. Ultimately it’s a rather complex entity in that it embodies both the large, important issues and the superficial/trivial issues simultaneously.

Let’s forget everything you know of brand and strip it down to understand how it can work for someone at the head of the company, be it a CEO, MD or equivalent. In essence brand can also be seen as a set of rules all employees need to adhere to and a way of further exerting your control over the business.

At this point it should be clear that brand is more than a symbol, a logo, a website or advertisement. These examples are communication devices that adhere to predetermined brand guidelines.

Brand creation is not in the realm of the marketing department but sits very comfortably in the boardroom. Largely, this is because your marketing team hasn’t got the top-level answers to the most important questions. Business strategy is dictated from the very top so the brand, your plan communicate to all of your audiences needs to be derived from an informed source. That said, a brand consultancy worth it’s salts will speak to personnel from all levels of the business and also selected sources within your marketplace when doing it’s research.

Brand affects every aspect of the company as branding is now a mainstream management activity. It’s simultaneously a marketing resource; a design resource, a communications resource and a behavioral resource in that employees are as much a communicator of the brand as the company literature. It is a coordinating resource in that it will bring consistency and coherence to all of the corporation’s activities.

Overall the brand will communicate with your audience, both internal and external, and help them grasp the essentials of what the company means and stands for. Remember that your company’s behavior in the public domain will effect recruitment, share price, acquisitions and every other aspect of corporate life.

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