Where does Brand sit?

There’s no single answer to where the brand team sits inside a corporation. But I believe it must sit within the team that provides the major point of differentiation for your product of service.

So, it makes sense for Apple to have the Brand sensibility lead by the hardware product team. Hardware is their competitive advantage.

The Brand team in a Consumer Package Goods company like Unilever make most sense when they stand alone - the product is generic, the innovation slight. The competitive advantage is in the Brand strength.

The Brand team inside a service company like Virgin makes sense sitting within employee training or customer service. Because service is the competitive advantage.

For founders, the brand may well be inseparable from their own vision and so they inherit the responsibility for managing the brand. As the company scales it’s often a problem to pry the brand away from the founder to help position the company in an ever changing market.

When a CEO, or COO moves a brand team around like a chess piece it’s a clear signal that they may have lost sight of the competitive advantage.

When you have no-one in your organization managing the brand you have devolved responsibility of leading it to your customer.

So if we agree that a company needs brand stewardship and we agree that any brand team should sit close to the point of differentiation within the organization, the next obvious question to ask is what kind of team do we need to steward a modern brand and what kind of structure would support that.

Karl Isaac and I had great conversations about this – he shared an idea of fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers from his time training for iron man. I had a similar analogy from my research on surfing; waiting for a wave & getting on a wave use two contrasting physiologies. Both ideas ask questions about the ability to adapt.

Markets and the business's which succeed within them are moving more rapidly than ever.

Kodak – 116 years from founding to bankruptcy.

Blockbuster – 26 years.

Myspace – 6.

Brands and the businesses they represent must adapt & change. The normal roles and responsibility of a brand team focus on 1-5 years. This new responsibility looks at 1-5 months. So it's clear that any team needs a fast & slow twitch muscle. 

Creating a 'Lab' within the team is a great way to anticipate market shifts while maintaining consistency with a slower twitch muscle. What are the other demands on a modern brand team? Who would be able to respond to them?