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branding

Business leaders and staff agree company brand identity linked to success

The Gartner Marketing and Narrative Impact Survey of 1,154 business leaders and employees across North America and the United Kingdom in November and December 2023 found that 75% of respondents agree their organization must do a better job aligning external audiences’ views with company identity and direction.

Despite marketing’s accountability for brand, 72% of leaders report their marketing function is not instrumental to their company’s business evolution.

“Nearly all companies are evolving in some way to set themselves up for future success, whether by shifting capabilities or offerings, catching up to market expectations, or reaching new target audiences,” said Dorian Cundick, VP, Advisory in the Gartner Marketing Practice. “This presents a huge opportunity for marketers to bring audiences along to support this journey—fueling revenue growth and helping increase perceptions of marketing as a critical partner in business evolution.”

Gartner research shows that when audiences understand a company’s business evolution, they’re more likely to buy from, work for, or otherwise support that company. In fact, business leaders who report strong audience understanding of their business evolution are 1.4x more likely to surpass revenue objectives.

“Marketing leaders must invest in a corporate narrative to create a bridge between brand and strategy,” Cundick said. “While the story of who an organization is and where it’s going is a powerful tool to support business evolution, it isn’t as effective as it could be – the average employee uses them only about a third of the time. Infrequent use of narrative material is associated with a lower likelihood of exceeding performance goals.”

In order for corporate narratives to achieve their full effect and generate value, CMOs must take a different approach to engaging in narrative efforts

A Gartner survey in November and December 2023 of 180 business leaders involved in moving forward their company’s business evolution found that skewing leadership efforts towards activation relative to development lifts business performance by 23%. When leaders focus disproportionately on activation, they also rate marketing as more instrumental to their company’s business evolution.

“Marketing is most likely to be seen as a strategic partner in business evolution when leaders play a significant role in narrative activation efforts like mobilizing the narrative externally through campaigns, as opposed to development activities like finalizing the narrative framework, or testing it with key stakeholders,” said Cundick. “Leadership involvement in activation helps ensure that narrative materials have ‘fit’ – meaning they’re contextualized for employees’ needs and are more likely to connect key audiences to the narrative.”

The Gartner Marketing and Narrative Impact Survey found most employees are trying to accomplish at least one of three things when they communicate about company identity and direction:

  • 79% of employees want to align, creating line of sight between individuals and organizational identity.
  • 64% want to persuade, influencing others in support of organizational identity and direction.
  • 80% want to connect, building a sense of personal and shared connection to the organizational identity and direction.

Marketing teams should create resources like guidelines, proof points, tools and templates to help employees align and persuade others. For the connect use case, draft messaging and experiences that help employees see themselves in the narrative. Many of these materials can be developed at the same time as the narrative itself is being finalized, as long as different teams coordinate their efforts.

“When CMOs play a more strategic and visible role in business evolution, business performance improves, and marketing’s value becomes more clear,” Cundick said.

Photo by DocuSign on Unsplash

These are Britain’s favourite brand logos

Britain’s favourite logo is Coca-Cola, with McDonald’s in second place and Disney’s Mickey mouse silhouette ranked third.

Coke’s iconic red and white symbol was first revealed in the late 1800s and has remained largely unchanged ever since.

It’s so popular the logo can commonly found on fashionable clothing items, homeware and other desirables – while vintage items featuring the logo can sell for thousands.

Commissioned by label makers Avery, the research of 2,000 UK adults found 62 per cent consider logos such as those belonging to Hard Rock Café and Ferrari to be ‘works of art’.

Fiona Mills, marketing director for Avery UK, said: “Last year we conducted research which highlighted the impact design and branding can have in terms of persuasiveness, consumer trust and consumer perception.

“The findings showed the results can be extremely powerful if you get the ingredients of label design spot on.

“These ingredients can include handwritten fonts, bold colours and shapes, emotion and use of heuristics – the brain’s mental decision-making shortcuts.”

Other logos in the top 10 include the emblems for Nike, Guinness and LEGO – along with those for Michelin and PG Tips.

Nostalgia appears to play a part with long established logos such as Fisher-Price, Oxo, Wall’s and Colman’s all featuring.

However relative newcomers such as Amazon, Google, Virgin and Starbucks made the top 40 too.

The research also found a product’s logo is so important it’s the first thing we notice about a product – ahead of the product’s name and even its colour.

Logos are also a key part of what makes a brand memorable – 46 per cent said they are the most enduring aspect of a brand.

A fifth are so loyal to particular brands they will specifically purchase branded products over non-branded counterparts – despite them often costing more.

But 33 per cent will only buy from brands they are familiar with – and for 53 per cent, familiarity makes them trust a brand more.

The poll also looked at the logos and brands we find most memorable from different decades – from the sixties through to the noughties.

And it emerged the eighties is the most popular era when it comes to logos, packaging and branding.

However 47 per cent think products and their packaging look better now than they ever have done before.

Branding belonging to Maxwell House, Nestle Milkybar and Kodak were found to be the most enduring of those from the sixties.

Old Spice, Fairy washing-up liquid and Wimpy were identified as the most recognisable from the seventies.

The most memorable ones from the eighties are Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nesquik according to those polled.

And similarly the most unforgettable logos from the nineties belong to Adidas, Lynx and The Body Shop.

While Costa Coffee, Dove and Red Bull’s are the ones most associated with the noughties.

TOP 40 – MOST POPULAR LOGOS

1. Coca-Cola
2. McDonald’s
3. Mickey Mouse (Disney)
4. Cadbury
5. Apple
6. Nike
7. Guinness
8. LEGO
9. Michelin
10. PG Tips
11. Oxo
12. Mercedes-Benz
13. Google
14. Levi’s
15. Adidas
16. Pepsi
17. British Airways
18. Volkswagen
19. Shell
20. Amazon
21. Wall’s
22. Goodyear
23. Toblerone
24. Colman’s
25. Virgin
26. AA
27. BMW
28. Pringles
29. Walkers Crisps
30. Fisher-Price
31. Kodak
32. Land Rover
33. M&S
34. Ford
35. Starbucks
36. Burger King
37. Tesco
38. Hoover
39. IKEA
40. Argos