What do you think of when you hear “branding”? Marketing buzzword? Visual identity? Logos, colors, matching business cards and letterhead? But branding is so much more than graphic design and stationery. Brand is reputation. It’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. It’s what they say after they experience your product, your people, and you. You can learn more about a brand from Google reviews and Glassdoor ratings than any traditional marketing assessment.
Trust is the currency of business and reputation is the result of that trust gained or lost. Earned trust leads to a positive reputation – and vice versa. And now that competition is global and reputation lives everywhere, it is vital to have someone protecting and driving the brand. If you want to take your brand seriously and build a consistently positive reputation, you’re ready for a Chief Brand Officer (CBO).
Senior leadership teams have executives sitting in the seats of finance, technology, and operations. The CBO is the advocate for the holistic brand. When hard-won reputations can be tarnished in an instant with one bad experience retweeted like wildfire, it’s more crucial than ever to have a senior leader monitoring all things brand-related.
A CBO plays a key role in both the protection and growth of the brand. They consider all the factors involved in brand-building: customer experience, employee culture, marketing efforts, and product development, just to name a few. Not only are they the finger on the pulse of the true reputation of the company both internally and externally, but they are also the voice of the brand in all things. Just as the CFO speaks to the financial aspects of every decision, the CBO speaks to the reputational aspects.
