Branding – A Collective Responsibility

Today, who doesn’t know of Nike and Starbucks? Sneakers were sneakers until Phil Knight came along to brand it as sports and fitness product and coffee was just a hot beverage until Starbucks created an excitement around its consumption by branding experiences. These brands stand successful even today because they consistently evoke positive feelings with each new product, services, or marketing campaign. These brands stand strong and have survived all bad and good seasons of business turmoil because they enjoy strong internal and external mix of branding.

It stands true not only for Nike and Starbucks but for any product or service offered to customers. Nike and Starbucks emerged as powerful brands because contrary to the conventional wisdom – branding stands true for external communication, its aim is to attract new customers and influence the old ones – they established their brand with the help of their employees. The old view has lost its significance in the
new market structure where companies in the midst of restructuring their business strategy need to communicate to their employees as they do with their customers.

In this new brand world, branding is not only domain of marketer but it has gone ahead to shop floor and, to the employee. In fact, brand-building exercise is the responsibility of the entire enterprise, including CEO. Most of the successful companies’ CEOs are managing branding exercise directly from most successful companies and the success stories of these companies have proved that the top boss of the companies should manage the branding exercise. Michael Dell of Dell Computer and Richard Branson of Virgin have done great job in positioning their brands globally. Richard Branson infused brand in the culture of the company and at Dell Computers brand was ingrained in the vision of company. Both these CEOs built strong relationship with the customers and employees. They have always seen brand as an important asset of company. Their initiatives helped Dell and Virgin to emerge as global companies.