Just as the brand is magnified at customer touchpoints, it is also magnified on the other end—by the CEO. Whatever a leader does or says makes an impression. Look at politicians. They can get into trouble very easily by an offhand comment. Their attempts to retract a remark and re-align their affiliations and sensibilities with those that are acceptable in the eyes of the public constitute a repositioning in an attempt to re-establish their brand identity, suffering from self-inflicted wounds.

The same is true inside a company. A former boss once told me of a significant lesson she learned about management—be careful about making offhand remarks to employees. They take what you say very seriously. Position and power magnify the brand, which permeates from the top down, externally as well as internally. In an earlier post, I mentioned that the head of Abt “lives” his brand with his hybrid. He is walking—I mean driving—the talk.

And yet, in our 360-degree marketing world, there are examples of the brand experience being lived from the bottom up. This could be very powerful if the CEO uses the latest management tools to affirm the brand from within. Look at Pfizer’s CEO. Jeffrey Kindler goes on “undercover” rides with his sales reps. They don’t tell anyone who he is, so he gets treated like everyone else. Can you imagine a CEO not being treated like a CEO? A brilliant tactic. He’s probably garnering more information from this method than from his direct reports. This CEO is the incarnation of the living brand.

Filed under: Branding, Marketing Innovation, Marketing Resources