Chief Marketing Officers, typically the top brand decision maker, have been seen as the joke of the C-Suite for a long time, subject to interrogation from CEOs purely focused on skin deep statements and figures around marketing spend versus sales. They can be entirely uninterested in understanding the drivers of customer loyalty and employee engagement and the benefits of brand clarity and consistency, factors we know are a big contributor to long-term commercial success.

This of course is to their detriment, with companies that exclude the brand from consideration experiencing slow growth and loss of business to their more savvy, brand-led competitors. They are also more likely to experience higher turnover of staff and  increased spending on marketing and advertising efforts due to lack of direction and no consistent execution.

As you prioritise your projects, resources and budgets for 2025, we want to call out three fundamental truths about branding that should be front and center in every decision you make this year. By giving these areas their due consideration, you can accelerate decision-making, streamline your operations, and create teams that are passionate about your business and strive to innovate beyond your competition. 

Investing in your brand = financial return

The evidence of what investing in and nurturing your brand can do for the bottom line of the business is irrefutable and should make all CEOs and decision-makers sit up and pay attention.

From a revenue perspective, the brand perception you build with customers directly impacts the premium you can add to the price of your products. Think an Apple iPhone or a Hermès Birkin bag – the price tag is not from the cost of making the item or getting it onto the shop floor. It comes from the brand appeal and what the brand believes customers are willing to pay to get their hands on it. In a world where competitors can replicate your technology or level of quality overnight, your brand and how it is perceived becomes the key driver of what keeps your customers loyal and spending time and time again. Multiple studies have shown that presenting your brand consistently across all your communications can increase revenue by over 20%.

Many organisations, particularly large, global businesses, have a real challenge with consistency. They can lack clear brand governance frameworks that guide how marketers should express their brand, or leave local or regional teams to do their own thing with no connection to central brand strategy. This results in customers being met with multiple stories that look and feel different, blurring their understanding of what brand stands for and what it’s trying to tell them.

This confusion pushes customers away from the business and to the competitors.  US retailer JC Penney learnt this lesson the hard way in 2013 – undertaking three brand refresh projects in as many years that tried to elevate the brand from a discount store to an up-market retailer. Teams across the organisation couldn’t keep up with the changes, resulting in a mess in terms of how the JC Penney brand was presented.

With a clear but flexible system in place for how your brand is presented to customers – how it looks and sounds – your teams can ensure the ‘why’ of your organisation is shared in the way that it needs to. This can also lead to substantial cost savings as internal teams are producing content more efficiently based on clear guidelines. And in the mind of the consumer, this consistency builds familiarity and recognition.

 Finally, investors are increasingly making the brand a critical factor in their investment decision making. According to a study from global accounting firm Ernest & Young, around 40% of IPO (initial public offer) investment decisions are attributable to non-financial measures that include the experience and credibility of the management, corporate strategy execution, brand strength and corporate governance. If corporate leaders want to raise capital and woo investors, having a powerful brand with a clear strategy behind the numbers is hugely beneficial.

A brand is not just a logo

We frequently get contacted by organisations requesting a new logo… and that’s it.

But a logo by itself doesn’t do anything. If an organisation decides to just change the logo on its products or marketing materials, will anyone notice? For a new logo to have any impact it needs to be driven by a clear strategic rationale related to how your organisation is evolving and how it’s providing something truly relevant to your customers.

Your brand is not just a logo, a piece of packaging, a brochure, or a marketing campaign. It’s the lens for everything you do to describe what your product or service stands for and why your business matters. It’s the way you sound and look out in the world as well as the ‘feeling’ and range of perceptions your audience have when they experience your brand at any point. As former Disney CEO Michael Eisner said, “A brand is a living entity. It is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures”.

These small gestures are reflected in every touchpoint of your business both internally and externally – from your brand name, to your story, to your website, colour palette, imagery, values, communications and experiences. Every element needs to be carefully considered to ensure that singular, powerful story shines through at every moment.

Building your brand means building your distinction and differentiation versus your competition. As corporations expand their operational remits and product portfolios, with many technologies becoming commoditized, organisations need a way to stand out from the crowd. The only way to do this effectively is through brand building – raising awareness and recognition of your brand and highlighting why you’re different to everyone else.

In short, if you’re asking for just a logo, you are likely to miss out on the impact and growth to be gained through a more strategic brand initiative.

Brand purpose is your guide for decision making

The most successful organisations that have been leaders in their fields and markets for years, if not decades, place tremendous attention on their brand purpose due to the singular vision it gives them and the opportunities it provides to expand into new product areas.

 Purpose sits at the overlap of three key areas:

1.        Strengths – what do we do better than anyone else?

2.        Moral imperative – what ideals inspire and motivate us?

3.        Performance – what is driving our economic growth?

By interrogating these three areas, corporate leaders can reveal previously unknown competitive advantages, identify the real drivers of success and deliver a story that is inspiring and motivating to employees and future talent.

Distilled together into a corporate or brand purpose, leaders have a safeguard to check all business decisions against. Does expanding into this product area support our purpose and champion our core strengths? Does this decision align with the values that our employees have told us are important to them and to why they work for us? These are all questions that are easier to answer, when viewed in terms of your company’s foundational corporate purpose.

 At the heart of technology giant Apple lies their purpose “to create technology that empowers people and enriches their lives”. This acute focus on the end customer has guided Apple decision making over the decades and continues to inform leadership today. This purpose has kept the firm challenging and innovating continuously since its founding nearly 50 years ago, moving Apple beyond its famous product line into services such as AppleCare and Apple TV+ that were massive contributors to the firms success in 2024.

Take Nike – To move the world forward through the power of sport. Or IKEA – To create a better everyday life for many people. Or Disney – To entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe. All these organisations continue to be leaders in their category, guided by a singular statement that gives customers, employees, partners and communities a simple and compelling reason to engage with their brand. And the impact is clear, business management researcher Jim Collins and organizational theorist Jerry Porras found that organisations driven by purpose and values outperform the wider market at a ratio of 15:1 and outperform their competitors 6:1.

Homework for 2025

So, as you think about your brand in 2025, we urge you to ask yourself at least some of the following questions:

• Can I distill what we do as a company into a simple statement?
• Do my employees know what our corporate or brand purpose is?
• Do I know what our corporate values are?
• Do I know what matters to my employees?
• Are my marketing teams producing materials that are strong, consistent and effectively communicate how I think we should be presenting our brand?
• Do I know what our customers think of our brand? Do they trust us and why?
• Are we focusing on the right parts of the business?
• Can I state clearly the key elements of our brand identity (logo, colour palette, tone of voice attributes, imagery style…)? 

If you’re struggling for an answer, there may be challenges ahead and we counsel you to take a moment to pause and reflect on whether you are doing all you can to deliver a powerful, impactful brand for your organisation. And if you want an expert view, just get in touch!