From a personal point of view I think taking care of your brand & building awareness is core to any organisation.
I know if you talk to accounts, the bottom line is king and if you talk to sales, then ‘units’ shifted are the key but what many ‘non marketing’ people fail to take into account is that without a respected name the other two are unlikely to happen.
A strong brand takes an age to build and then just a moment to destroy unless you are a truly established name. Although, even then it can definitely damage you, just look at VW at the moment, their market value has lost 35% in little over a week.
Just one little hiccup (or in VW’s case, one massive, potentially criminal ‘hiccup’) can knock you straight off your pedestal!
Brands needs to be more than getting the right marketing message out to client. It needs to be a whole ethos that your entire staff buy in to. More often than not they will be your biggest advocates or potentially the most damaging ones. It needs to be the culture of a workplace & the story behind it as well as the products and the promotions.
Brand needs to be all encompassing and I think that is often where some companies fall down. To often the ‘quick win’ take precedence. All too often the brand advocacy is left to the marketing department. If this is the mind-set of top level, how on earth is a company to develop a strong brand?
A strong brand is essential for the success and longevity of any organisation. It needs to be valued internally as highly as any other asset within a company’s portfolio.
If you believe in and value your brand then your customers will do too!