One of the biggest misconceptions in business is that brand belongs to the marketing department.
// Newsflash… It doesn’t.
Brand belongs to the organisation. Or at least, it should.
The marketing team might be responsible for communicating the brand, but they don’t own the thousands of decisions that shape how it’s actually experienced. That’s everyone else’s job. Every pricing decision. Every product roadmap. Every hiring decision. Every customer interaction. Every operational shortcut. Every sales conversation. Every investment. Every “yes”. Every “no”. Over time, those decisions become your reputation. They become your brand. Which is why I’ve always believed that growing a branded business is one of the few responsibilities shared equally across an executive leadership team.
// Yet something fascinating happens when I sit down with organisations.
Ask a CEO what the business stands for and you’ll get an answer. Ask the CMO and you’ll get another. The CFO sees it through commercial performance. The COO through operational excellence. Sales through revenue. Product through innovation. HR through culture.
None of them are wrong….
But they’re often not saying the same thing either.
Not because they’re incapable. Not because they don’t care. But because somewhere along the way, everyone started carrying around their own slightly different version of the truth. Close enough that nobody notices. Different enough that it quietly influences decisions every single day.
// The irony is almost laughable.
Businesses will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to understand their customers e.g. they’ll commission research, segmentation studies, NPS tracking, brand trackers, ethnographies and workshops.
They’ll obsess over what people outside the organisation think.
// Yet almost nobody ever stops to ask a much simpler question.
Does our own executive team actually see the same business?
Not what they think they should say.
What they genuinely believe.
Because if your leadership team can’t independently articulate why customers choose you, what makes you different, where you’re heading, what should never change and what you’re trying to become… why would you expect the rest of the organisation to?
Alignment isn’t a culture exercise. It’s a commercial one.
Misalignment creates friction. Friction slows decisions. Slower decisions create inconsistent experiences. Inconsistent experiences weaken brands. And weak brands become businesses forced to compete on price, promotion and performance instead of meaning.
// It’s one of the reasons I built an Executive Brand Health Check-up.
Not because the world needs another fucking survey….
Because sometimes the most valuable thing an executive team can receive isn’t another strategy deck.
IT’S A MIRROR…
// A brutally honest, objective reflection of how aligned they actually are.
// No consultants sitting in the room.
// No groupthink.
// No politics.
Just each executive answering the same questions, independently, before comparing the results.
It’s amazing what surfaces…. Sometimes it’s reassuring Sometimes it’s uncomfortable. Good. Because if you’re resting on your laurels, then you’re probably not growing. Do I have your attention yet?
Almost always, it starts conversations that probably should have happened years earlier.
If you’re curious… and brave enough – I’m happy to send it through.
Think of it as your annual physical.
Because the healthiest brands aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets.
// They’re the ones whose leadership teams are rowing in the same direction.
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PS: Clarity is easy to talk about and surprisingly difficult to create. If your team is currently navigating complexity, competing priorities or strategic drift, I’d be happy to have a chat.
💀🖤
Cheers,
DANIEL JACOBS
http://bjornfox.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/denialjacobs/
Melbourne, Australia
THE CREATIVE STRATEGIST 