Why Marketers Need a Clear Definition of Brand

Marketers require greater clarity about what a “brand” is, and what they can help companies achieve, in order to enhance the support they get from the C-suite.

Such a viewpoint was outlined by Karen Crum, EMEIA brand strategy leader at EY, speaking at the 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Why defining brand matters

Brands are the lifeblood of marketing, but remain a nebulous concept. Heightened clarity about what the term “brand” means, and what impact these assets can deliver in practice, could assist marketers in securing the support of the C-suite and, in turn, increasing their budgets.

What is a brand

• EY asked some 200 executives from corporations, agencies and private equity firms to define the word “brand”. The result? “We got about 170 different answers,” Crum said.
• Responses were spread across nine categories, including communication/storytelling; experience and consistency; differentiation/market position; and reputation/trust.
• The others were social responsibility/ethical practices; value proposition and quality; identity/recognition; perception/emotional connection; values and promises.
• The good: “People see branding in lots of different things,” Crum said. The bad: Convincing the C-suite to invest in a brand will be difficult without a shared understanding of this term.

Investment or cost?

• Such issues extend to how spending on brand is perceived among the participants in the survey, Crum reported.
• Forty-four percent of respondents said they regarded expenditure on a brand as an investment or as capital expenditure, the EY survey found.
• Another 30% “largely view it as a cost”’, while 24% perceive it as “a bit of both” and 2% had no “clear rule”.

Brand and company performance

• EY wanted to understand how a brand acts as a lever to drive company performance, by looking at the main roles it fulfills in a company, Crum added.
• In top spot, and cited by 43% of respondents, was attracting and retaining customers.
• Thirty-six percent mentioned informing corporate positioning and 35% selected driving company performance.
• Rounding up the top five were informing marketing strategy and sales goals (31%) and attracting talent, driving DEI, culture and employee value (29%).

The major levers of brand

• In the face of this consistent diversity of perceptions, Crum suggested the idea of “brand” will always contain something “magic” and “intangible”.
• “But we can do a much better job of building the precedent for how and why it’s important,” she added.
• Next, she outlined five “levers” that can help enhance understanding of what a brand does: generating trust, offering protection (especially in a crisis), driving preference, facilitating expansion (into new markets or audiences) and impacting perception.
• These levers can then be tracked against three wider priorities, according to Crum.
• And they are: shareholders (e.g. driving growth and attracting investment), corporate and organisational (e.g. driving corporate strategy and informing acquisitions); and functional (e.g. attracting customers and enhancing ad effectiveness).