How to get a CFO to fall in love with brand value
Henry Innis explains how in order to get the c-suite to understand the value of a strong brand, it’s time to stop spouting the usual marketing guff and start looking at the facts.
Here’s an old, over-asked question: do brands have value to the bottom line?
Ask ten people and you’ll often get ten different answers. They’re variations on a theme. ‘Brand value is intangible.’ ‘It’s built over the long term.’ ‘It can’t be built through marketing.’ And so on. People love to have an opinion on the matter.
For c-suite executives, it’s no wonder they’re struggling to figure out just how those brand guys contribute to the bottom line. We’ve done an awful job in showing how we get there.
I could listen to this dreamboat explain things for hours…
Is there any better brand strategy than to have an excellent product that people want to tell others about? (is it even possible to manufacture desire the way adland once used to?) I struggle to see any contemporary examples of products where positioning can be attributed to brand advertising.
Arguably strong brand building has more to do with product/operations/customer service than advertising (e.g Apple).
I tend not to think brands are built by advertising. Maybe amplified, but certainly never defined, by ads.
Tell me more, tell me more, did the CFO put up a fight?