Making a mark: The importance of being an earnest 21st century brand leader

Thought leaders in the brand world like David Aaker and Gordon Cook believe that strong brands lead to successful businesses. The execs on the top floor therefore ultimately lead the brand and ensure that its purpose and vision permeates and inspires the whole organisation.

But how do you lead brands in the era of the 'latté activist' as they raise their online voices via social networks and wreak havoc with share prices while sipping nonchalantly on their designer coffees at their favourite 'third space'?

Seth Godin argues that we need to form and lead tribes instead of building companies in the traditional manner. Thanks to the advent of the internet, tribes are everywhere and they can transform the world because these people want to connect with each other. They use technology to unite behind beliefs, and then create tribes that tell compelling stories that connect to global communities of interest.

SA brand leaders like Rui Estevez and Brad Armitage, founders of Vida e Caffé and &Union, are experts at creating tribes. At the 2010 Brand Hooligans Conference they spoke about their beliefs: "When you really believe in what you're doing and have a strong vision of what you're trying to achieve, the passion sells itself." For Estevez it is about "working hard, not giving up, doing the opposite, having a vision and sticking to your vision."

‘Dreams are not only about money, but also about leaving a legacy and what you want to achieve in life’ ~ Adrian Gore, CEO of Discovery Holdings

Another brand leader who is not afraid of challenging the status quo is Adrian Gore, CEO of Discovery Holdings. Gore argues that "dreams are not only about money, but also about leaving a legacy and what you want to achieve in life. The real story of Discovery Invest is founded on dreams and goals, which are more important than the plan."

When last did you ask why you are in business? Is it to make a profit? If that's the case, it's unlikely that you leap out of bed in the morning enthused and ready to rush to the office to go and maximise shareholder value.

Gary Hamel argues in his February 2009 Harvard Business Review article 'Moon Shots for Management' that companies must ensure that the work of management serves a higher purpose. "Most companies strive to maximise shareholder wealth - a goal that is inadequate in many respects. As an emotional catalyst, wealth maximisation lacks the power to fully mobilise human energies." He further argues that "tomorrow's organisations must be adaptable, innovative, socially responsible, as well as operationally excellent."

One might think that this is a prophetic vision of the future, but in truth this is not such a new notion. In the 1920's WK Kellogg said: "The purpose of business is not to make a profit. What a dreary and demeaning description. The purpose of business is to add value to people's lives. The consequence of doing that well is that you make a handsome profit."

John Mackey of Wholefoods talks about "conscious capitalism". Similar to Kellogg, he views profit not as the purpose of doing business but merely the means to an end. He believes that business is not a machine (as it was often viewed in the 20th century) but an interrelated ecosystem: it consists of an interdependent stakeholder community that co-operates voluntarily to create value.

Business must discover or create its unique purpose and try to fulfil this deeper mission. In their January 2011 Harvard Business Review article Michael Porter and Mark Kramer argue that 21st century companies need to create shared value. "Companies must lead in bringing business and society back together... We still lack an overall framework for guiding these efforts, and most companies remain stuck in a 'social responsibility' mindset in which societal issues are at the periphery, not the core.

"The solution lies in the principle of shared value, which involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. Businesses must reconnect company success with social progress."

The role of leadership is therefore to optimise the system and create value for all its stakeholders. In the long-term this approach will result in increased shareholder value as well, therefore ensuring sustainability because all stakeholders benefit in a systemic business ecosystem.

‘This is the time to reset and recalibrate in order to make a difference in how we build our brands’ ~ Marc Pritchard, Global Marketing and Brand Building Officer at Procter & Gamble

Proctor and Gamble also support this approach. According to Marc Pritchard, global marketing and brand-building officer at Procter & Gamble: "This is the time to reset and recalibrate in order to make a difference in how we build our brands." He stresses that building brands and serving a higher purpose can produce more sustainable business results.

Vega, a brand innovation school with campuses across SA, has introduced the concept of brand health and proposes a set of indicators that, when considered collectively, suggests a state of brand well-being.

Cook et al from Vega say: "Brand-led consumption places enormous pressure on our already precarious ecological state, and can drive production techniques that exploit both current and future generations.

"As strategic and creative communicators we need to help make our conversations smarter as a society. We need to bring to the fore what really matters, to ask tough questions and debate them. We need to hold companies accountable, engage in consumer education and make connectivity a priority.

"Our concept of a healthy brand, therefore, is a proposed alternative model for ensuring a far more conscious and direct connection between microeconomic sub-systems and broader socio-ecosystems necessary to sustain human dignity and life."

But this approach takes backbone and visionary leadership. In the 2009 film, Art and Copy, the chairman of TBWA\Chiat\Day, Lee Chow, relates the story of two seminal pieces of Apple brand communications - the '1984' and the 'Think Different' (1997) television commercials.

Neither of these ads shows a single computer. This was a brave, if not plain risky, move in 1984. As expected, the board of Apple refused to pay for the commercial upon which Steve Jobs turned to Steve Wozniak and said: "I'll pay half if you pay half." And the rest is brand leadership history.

In a time when brand communications was focused on rational messages they had the vision to ask "why" and knew that emotionally driven communications could firmly position Apple as a challenger brand. This laid the foundation for a brand that is, according to Millward Brown, 2011's most valued on the planet.

In strategy we love to ask the "what, when and how" questions, but how often do we ask "why"? Simon Sinek argues on TED.com that most leaders approach their brands from the wrong end: they first tell you what they do, then they tell you how they do it and maybe, just maybe, they will tell you why they do what they do.

Companies like Apple and Google, for example, ask why first. They tell you about their purpose and vision and convince you to buy into their dream. You join their tribe. Then they tell you how they do business and only then do they tell you what they do. That's why Apple has been so successful in transcending categories, explains Sinek. Nobody wants to buy an MP3 player from Dell or Microsoft. And yet everyone and his dog owns a premium-priced Apple iPod.

Brand guru Marty Neumeier also emphasises the importance for brand leaders to ask why and being able to answer this question clearly. In his typically succinct style, he poses three key questions that brand leaders need to answer:

As a brand,
1. Who are you?
2. What do you do?
3. Why does it matter?

For Neumeier, your organisation is not really a legitimate brand unless you understand the brand's purpose and can answer why you do what you do. With the introduction of the new Consumer Protection Act in April and the looming threat of supplier liability, it's more important than ever to build a healthy, coherent brand throughout your whole value chain.

Brand leaders in the 21st century therefore need to address the 'why' question and work towards co-creating healthy brand ecosystems.

Gary Hamel reminds us that: "This is a daunting challenge, but take heart. The first management pioneers had to turn freethinking, bloody-minded human beings into obedient, forelock-tugging employees. They were working against the grain of human nature. We, on the other hand, are working with the grain. Our goal is to make organisations more human - not less."

Do you remember that annoying (yet memorable) Standard Bank television commercial where the little girl incessantly asks her father, "Why? Why? Why?" After the umpteenth reply the patient father just smiles and says: "Because you have such an inquiring mind."

What happens to us when we grow up? We stop asking questions. Experts claim that the average six-year-old asks over 200 questions a day while the average adult asks a fraction of that. Is it not perhaps time that we become inquisitive again and, more importantly, ask the most important question first?


As published in JSE 03/2011.