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Where Finance Meets Branding

04/05/24

News

Clash of the Titans? Where Finance Meets Branding

2 Min Read

Finance is finance. Branding is branding. And never the ‘twain shall meet. Right? Wrong. Headlines appear daily, showing the critical relationship between these two disciplines (e.g., Adidas’ costly “fiasco” with Ye’s Yeezy brand). Finance and branding are no longer silos with opposing concerns on how to generate value. In fact, there’s a lot at stake: brands account for 30% of the stock market value of S&P 500s.

CFOs as Brand Guardians

Wise CFOs will see themselves among the guardians of the brand, with both value generation and risk protection. CFOs and CMOs can jointly increase value by unlocking new markets with brand differentiation, or by cultivating lifelong customers with brand loyalty and relevance over time (e.g., Oreos courting an adult market with a $7 million Super Bowl ad). CFOs can also mitigate brand risk by ensuring transparency in the supply chain (remember the Girl Scout cookie palm oil debacle?), by applying stress tests to prepare for the unexpected, and by practicing robust governance. Do feel free to insist that the line-item spending in branding – whether your offerings are cookies or athletic shoes – is money well spent.

“Building a brand is not about making things look pretty; brand should be used as a lens through which a business makes commercial decisions around positioning, personality and purpose in the marketplace, which done well, will drive revenue and enterprise value.”
– Andy Lipscombe, Director of Brand Strategy, FreshBritain

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