Business leaders admit: We don't get brands
Business leaders have stopped building brands, according to a new IPA report conducted by the Financial Times. The global report, titled The Board-Brand Rift, found that more than half of business leaders – including 30 per cent of senior-level marketers – rate their knowledge of brand building as average to very poor. This is despite being responsible for setting marketing objectives across both the short- and long-term.
Key points
- The majority of business leaders (83 per cent) believe in the power of brands to deliver to the bottom line, however there is a gap in knowledge on how they do this and the full financial opportunity/potential.
- There is a misalignment between the core business objectives and those objectives where business leaders and marketers believe brands have influence.
- Marketers themselves are not seeing brands’ full potential on commercial impact.
- Business leaders know that too much focus on the short term is bad for business, yet marketing reporting cycles continue to be focused on short timescales – particularly in APAC.
- One of the main obstacles in addressing the balance between long-term and short-term is credible metrics and understanding the commercial benefits of brand health.
- Business leaders’ knowledge of brand building is average to poor, and those that know little are in control of marketing objectives.
- The marketing team is not in control of setting marketing objectives.
The power of brands to deliver long-term value and growth is under threat, according to the IPA, but this shouldn’t surprise savvy industry observers.
Despite repeated commitment from marketers that they believe in the influence of brands, and that a balance between short- and long-term marketing objectives is necessary to achieve a better commercial result, the pressure to deliver short-term results persists.
The IPA report included respondents from the UK, the Americas, CEMEA and APAC. This is a global problem, not confined to a single region.
But why are marketers failing to elevate brand into playing a bigger role in driving commercial outcomes? At the end of the day, brand-building education starts with marketers. If they’re not convinced, how can they convince the c-suite?
For agencies, this presents an opportunity to fill the gap and help marketers make their voice heard at the c-suite. But the appetite needs to be there from marketers in the first place. Changing beliefs and behaviours is a big job, but it’s not impossible.
There are plenty of studies and evidence on the power of brands and the importance of creativity. We can confidently make the case for the commercial benefits of brand health and using credible metrics. These conversations should be happening at board level and it’s up to marketers to do more to bring this to the c-suite.
Marketers can start by improving their own knowledge and understanding of brand building and changing the language of marketing deliverables to reflect business commercial outcomes – agencies can help here by working with marketers to start linking current brand metrics to commercial outcomes.
Moving to a culture of collaborative objective setting (marketing/finance/strategy) creates the opportunity for more balanced objectives – and marketing teams need to convince their peers on the value of the long-term objectives.
