Is your brand sick or healthy?

Gordon Cook, Vega School of Brand Communications co-founder and school navigator, said: “We spend so much time and resources to build, enhance and measure our brand, and in the process we miss the real objectives because brands go beyond financial value.”

Cook was speaking yesterday,18 June 2009, at the ‘Is your brand sick or healthy' Journal of Marketing's Breakfast Debate hosted at Vega School in Randburg, Johannesburg, in association with Future Group and Absa.

“Too many children are dying in Africa and not a single global brand is doing something about it. We are not aggressively focusing on the social impact of our brands. We should look at the conditions of society and play a meaningful role in developing social aspects of our brands.”

Theory refuted

However, Cook's ‘socialist-like' theory was refuted by some pro-capitalism panellists, including Lebo Biko, MD of BBDO Consulting SA, and Sizakele Marutlulle, of Moonchild.

“A brand is what adds value to its shareholders and right now it is all about financial value, especially in times like these when the talk is all about cost-cutting and revenue-generating. And we marketers, we should focus more on generating revenues. After all, we have kids to feed and families to take care of,” said Biko.

Marutlulle said: “A sick brand is a brand that conforms and focuses too much on downstream and impact - the kind of green movement and others. And for me, that is sickness. There is a huge difference between impact and influence, and influence is what makes the brand healthy.”

She added: “SAA is a sick brand because it focuses on making an impact. The company has no customer equity as it believes that as a national carrier ‘everyone will use me'.

“We should do the thinking bit and unless that happens we will be rooted in one place. It is not what is in, but what matters.”

How can your brand become a tool of social change?

But then there are other thinkers who believe in the balanced philosophy of the brand.

Anthony Swart, of the Brand Union Africa, said companies need to look at how to allow their brands to become a tool of social change for the future.

“Financial and social value must be linked. Brands should not only be measured by their financial viability, instead should be driven by consumer demand and government regulation, and in the broader context become environmentally conscious, and then they will reap their benefits,” he said.

“Marketers should understand their consumers and remain true to their organisation's values. Brands should be about society, government and business, and look at the bigger picture,” he added

CEO of Interbrand Sampson Doug de Villiers said: “As a brand manager, you should measure your brand's reputation, which must not only be financial, but a reputation that is built on what you have done and how you deliver and what is relevant in society.”

Cook, who said oil and tobacco and pampers companies are sick, called on brand managers to look at the entire value chain of business, and measure their brands' ecological impact, and fight poverty.

Visit www.jom.co.za.