Protecting the Brand: Communications Number One Role

Brand Management is something which a great deal of ink has been spilled over. Most of these pieces are easily forgettable academic tomes, never to see the outside of a classroom. What is interesting though is that while nearly everyone can agree that a brand is important and that marketing should have some control over it, very few can agree on how to best manage and protect a brand.

I think it best to try and figure out first of all, who should not be responsible for managing the brand on a regular basis. I would start off by saying keep the CEO away from the day-to-day management of the brand. Yes, it is true that the CEO has organizational responsibilities that span the entire company and as a result there is the necessity for him or her to have a degree of involvement in brand management. What I would advocate is keep the CEO from micro-managing the brand and thus causing it to ebb and flow with their whims. Let's ignore the fact that micro-managing has been demonstrated to be counterproductive to organizational growth, the fact is that the CEO will be focused on too many things to give the brand the time it needs and, in many cases, the chief will lack the exact expertise to manage the brand and may, in fact, do more harm than good.

The other group who should be kept miles away from brand management is the group who are indecisive or who wish to make decisions they believe will please higher ups and please management. There will be times when hard decisions will be required about the brand and this group tends to either descend into anarchy or flee like rats from a sinking ship. One most also think of the mind set of this group. They tend to think in terms of what is best for them in the near term and have no concept of anything happening five years down the road. A good brand should be built to last for generations not just a few years.

The third group who should be kept away from the brand is people who do not have a background in one of the marketing disciplines. I say this because they first and foremost don't understand the evolutionary process that is both marketing and communications. What happens today was preceded by a historical event. Nothing happens in a vacuum and what happens tomorrow or next week will be the result of things planned and/or executed this week. Sorry to apply the broad brush here but sales people, accountants, engineers what have you just do not think in these terms. Marketing people are best equipped to deal with this type of thought process.

So we come to who should be responsible for protecting the brand. By now I am sure it is no surprise that I say it is the marketing team and specifically it is the communications group within marketing who should manage it. Why do I say this? Basically because communications people are the one group in most organizations who have to be both strategic geniuses and tactical wizards. We have to be both creative and analytical. We have to be able to deal with a CEO one minute, a vendor the next and then someone who maybe just out of school the third.

In addition, communications people are equipped with the necessary tools to think ahead several quarters and are the few groups in the organization who are truly planning for what will transpire. We are the best trained and best equipped members of the organization to deal with crisis situations and we know not only how to react to them but also to prevent them from taking place. Lastly, we are the best equipped members of the organization to work with different groups as we need to be able to speak the languages of finance, tech, health care or what ever group you might have so we are able to offer a concise and accurate statement regarding the brand in virtually any situation.

Protecting the brand is no small feat. It is the organization's most valuable asset but sadly many executives fail to see just how valuable it is, until it is damaged by a crisis they could have prevented. If protection of the brand is left to competent marketing and communications professionals and they are allowed to develop a coherent and far reaching strategy then the organization will thrive. The greatest brands on the market now have one thing in common, strong and exceptional marketing departments. As the old saying goes if your neighbor is digging holes in the ground and finding gold each time he digs then its time you start to dig in your yard.