Brand building isn’t a separate exercise from the day-to-day running of the business. It is integral to it.
Consider our work for BMW. Everything in that organization is coerced and corralled into a single unifying vision, all united by one value-generating idea. For BMW, this red thread is the commitment to please customers with the very best in automotive engineering. This manifests itself in a few obvious ways, such as its tagline and messaging, but also guides management decisions on everything from showroom plans to fabric choices, and ensures that the company’s outer voice (what it says it’s going to do) reflects its inner voice (what it actually does). And, as 93% of employees believe that BMW Group is a great place to work, it’s no wonder this translates to a brand worth US$23 billion and the highest brand value per automobile sold. This is true of many of the world’s most valuable brands. Look at Apple, whose promise of a different experience through ease of use creates a red thread that touches all aspects of their business, including product innovation and interface design. At Disney, the commitment to create magical experiences produces undeniable value, forming a red thread that affects everything from the appearance and behavior of its “cast members” to its television programming. For Nike, the idea of performance runs through the business from “Just do it” to how the organization gets it done.
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Best Global Brands 2008
Or take Interbrand, an example that is near and dear to me. For us, the notion of brand value itself is our Red Thread. We are the consultancy that sees brands as economic assets, as drivers of demand, and creators of wealth. We believe that behind every great brand is a great idea that generates value. Our daily mission is to understand how that value is created across our clients’ businesses, providing strategic advice and creative solutions that have a common purpose and foundation in generating demand. Whether we are producing the corporate identities that will fuel the iconic images of the 21st century or crafting brand architectures to optimize the way a major global enterprise manages its assets, “value” is quite simply the lifeblood at the very heart of our business, the common theme that unites us and makes us stand out from the crowd. I believe that the concepts of brand and value are inseparable. To be truly effective, brands must be built around the thing that generates the most value for your business. A brand conceived in this fashion will create demand, in turn improving the monetary value of the business. Managed properly, this ever-growing cycle of value creation will define the very essence of the 21st century’s eminent brands.