Halo In Conversation with – Marty Neumeier (part two)
Brand diagnosis
Picking up on the lack of understanding of brand, we discuss the importance of brand diagnosis – knowing the health of your brand and the wider landscape it currently sits in. As Marty explains, knowing your ‘brandscape’ is essential to creating a strategy that might help you win. And he introduces us to his metaphor of scissors, paper, rock – and how businesses might make strategic moves from one type to another.
Brand strategy comes before business strategy – Marty Neumeier
Leading a business through the brand.
The beautiful thing about branding, when you do it well, is that it gets more people to buy more stuff for more years at a higher price. – Marty Neumeier
The long-term importance of brand is easily lost when marketers are being pushed for the short-term results. People need to be confident enough to push for the value of growing a brand, alongside chasing the short-term wins. Marty talks more about how Marketing Directors are well positioned to become CBOs, and lead their businesses through the brand.
It’s hard to put aside the urgent for the necessary. – Marty Neumeier
Almost killing innovation in America.
The importance and benefits of a business being led by a brand cannot be emphasised enough, and Marty offers the idea that the role of CBO has already been enacted – by Steve Jobs at Apple. With a CEO and a CBO working in tandem they can lead both inside and outside the business. Marty also tells us about how he ‘almost killed innovation in America’ in a run-in with one of his neighbours – Steve Jobs.
The scramble for agility.
Marty has written a number of books on brand, but a recent book Scramble is based on the need for agility when working with a modern brand. He explains a little about why he wrote Scramble to help explain the value of brand to CEOs, by writing a thriller with a narrative rather than a ‘business’ book. This format allowed him to show how the reality is when working with brand – rather than the ideal situations depicted in strategic models – and how important agility is for people leading modern brands.
Optimise and innovate.
The role of agility in shaping the future of your business through your brand is vital. We discuss how businesses can work innovation into a brand, even alongside the core of the business which needs to be optimised in order to be most profitable. Why it is important for a business to listen to their customers, but also to make decisions about where their focus will be put for future direction.
What’s next?
Finally, we asked Marty what’s next for him? Can we expect more books? And what is happening next with the Level C courses?
Many thanks to Marty for his time and expertise. Check out the Level C brand training and take a look at Marty’s books.
More from us on the importance of continually learning on brand:
Working with brand, we are always looking for informed and intelligent thinking on the key topics surrounding it. Only by constantly learning can we bring new and relevant knowledge and opinion to our work. In the spirit of continual learning, here’s a selection of the books that have helped give us a richer appreciation and understanding of the role brand plays – economically, socially, and culturally.
