How important is the CEO to your Branding Efforts?

Many a times when I companies, they send in a junior executive to do their work and later on the CEO is never really involved in the process. I always stress this. Everyone needs to be on board a branding exercise, most importantly the CEO who needs to walk the talk and live the brand for all to see. Communications consultant Bob Lamons says, "The CEO needs to be the No. 1 brand champion. No exceptions. No extenuating circumstances. Is she resists accepting this responsibility, the company will suffer."

I remember going in for a meeting recently with an organisation which had its brand values as Passionate, Fun, Dynamic & Empowering. In the meeting with the CEO and his team I observed that the staff were terrified of him. They were scared to talk back to him. The entire meeting was filled with fear and tension which was personified but a tough, tyrant like CEO. So much for the brand values which were not seen in the staff and definitely not in the CEO.

So the key thing to take note is that everyone in the organisation needs to be aligned to the Brand DNA of the organisation. NO BUTS!. They must project the values of the organisation through the right On Brand Behavior and they need to live the brand in across all their touchpoints including meetings, emails, customers meetings etc.

Contact me at jerome@thebrandtheatre.net for more information on how you can align your branding internally.