Strong brands let everyone sleep well at night
Saturday, July 24th, 2010
A strong, well-managed brand will let all of its stakeholders sleep well at night: customers, employees, shareholders, partners, the public, and Mother Nature. They can all sleep soundly when the brand does its job.
Strong brands have a unique and wondrous power to deliver value—and to mitigate risk—throughout their entire ecosystem. Let’s see how each brand stakeholder in the ecosystem benefits from the brand:
Customers
Strong brands offer superior quality, comprehensive warranties and responsive customer service. They are accountable to their customers for their products and services, and this translates into market offerings that customers can trust. Customers know that the brand has their back. And knowing this, they can drift into pleasant dreams.
Employees
Companies with strong brands are the best places to work. The brand sets clear standards, and brand principles infuse operations at every level. Everyone is accountable up and down the line. A unified vision and mission focuses the work, making everyone more productive. Fulfilling work leads to fulfilling sleep.
Shareholders
Strong brands take care of business (and shareholders) in ways that optimize operations and mitigate risk. They build equity above and beyond product offerings. The operating brand principle: “The closer you look, the better we look,” is something shareholders can take to the bank. And sleep on.
Partners
Strong brands make the partnership stronger. They can be trusted to do the right thing. It’s weak brands that cause the 3 a.m. wake-up calls.
The Public
Brands are a public trust. Strong brands earn that trust by being accountable to the public for their products, services and corporate actions. The public sleeps well knowing that the brand will stand up for what’s right as much as it stands out on its own behalf.
Mother Nature
Strong brands take care of Mother Nature. She has no money, no purchase intent, and no brand loyalty whatsoever, but her strength is brand strength. Mother Nature sleeps soundly because strong brands know that any wasteland is a dead zone for brands, too.


