FutureBrand news, views & insights: April 2025
When brands get to business
When I reflect on our client network over the past few years, one particular trend I've noticed is the diversification of our clients beyond CEOs, CMOs & Heads of Marketing to encompass Heads of Corporate Affairs as another pivotal point of brand leadership within an organisation.
By my experience and instincts, I'd say it's a signal of two shifts in dynamics.
Firstly, the fact that Trust has become such a pivotal strength (or pain point) has pushed the brand onto the Corporate Affairs agenda. Given the role of a brand and the value it can offer when navigating conversations with investors, regulators and the like, I'm not surprised Heads of Corporate Affairs have taken notice.
This is especially prevalent in the financial services sector, where trust has set the platform for responsible innovation with purposeful benefits, as you can read below in the latest FutureBrand Index Sector Study.
Secondly, a strong Employer Brand has become a building block for reputation, and internal or employee communications are typically delivered by Corporate Affairs teams. So it makes perfect sense that they would want to use the brand as the platform on which to connect and curate the employee experience.
After all, if your own people don’t believe in your business and brand, what makes you think your customers will?
When all is said and done, a brand is what a brand does.
It’s why we build brands for marketers and non-marketers alike: so that brands can truly get to business.
If you’re seeing what I’m seeing, hit ‘Reply’, I’d love to hear from you.
Trust pays dividends
Over the past decade, it’s brands from the financial services sector that have grown the strength of their brand perceptions by the greatest margin.
For example, the strongest financial services brands are not simply keeping pace with technological change, they're beating the tech giants at their own game: ‘Innovation’ for the financial services sector is up by 44% against tech's 6%.
Why? In a word. Trust.
Trust has become the linchpin for responsible innovation, such that new technologies are met with customer enthusiasm rather than apprehension and lead to sustainable growth.
The difference is that the strongest financial services brands aren't pursuing disruption at all costs but rather shaping progress purposefully and responsibly. This demonstrates that you don't need to 'move fast and break things' in order to drive digital transformation. With trust as their competitive edge, financial services brands now have the permission to innovate boldly in ways that deliver real value for customers.
Building Trust is just one of five strategies for the future explored in the study:
Brand Personality as a Competitive Advantage
Build Trust Through Responsible Innovation
Lead with Purpose and Integrity
Revolutionize Customer Engagement
Invest in Employer Brand
…download the latest FutureBrand Index Sector Study to explore insights and case studies from the world over.
Sports brands get personal
Sport is a sector in which FutureBrand regularly plays, whether working for governing bodies like Golf Australia, competitions like the Asian Cup and The Hundred, or teams like Chelsea and Western United FC.
Most recently, we’ve been speaking with the people at the heart of the action, the players themselves.
Our General Manager Christina has been sharing her thoughts with a group of AFLW and WBBL athletes and their managers, reflecting on what it takes to make the most of your own personal brand.
In Christina’s own words, “Personal brand is a foreign concept to most of us, but the truth is we all have one. Building it with purpose and authenticity is the next step.”
The secret to success? Consistency.
Just do it. And keep doing it.
How do you know what your customers are thinking?
If the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer, it’s only logical that you might engage with your customers on a regular basis to understand their needs, motivations and even their frustrations.
We do it for ourselves through our quarterly client survey, using NPS as a rolling measure of client advocacy. This way, we get to stand in our clients’ shoes.
We also do it on behalf of our clients through one of ‘habits’, whereby we try/buy/use our clients’ brands, products and services. That way, we get to stand in their customers’ shoes too.
To be honest, for most organisations this kind of customer engagement simply doesn’t happen enough. When was the last time you shopped your category? Bought your product? Contacted your call centre? Used your website? Logged into your app?
So it’s been all the more reassuring of late to see a spate of clients and contacts in our network facilitate their own ‘client forum’, or ‘customer panel’, or ‘customer consultative committee’ of one type or another.
Call it what you will, I’d say it all comes down to this key question posed by one of the business leaders involved:
“How do you know what your customers are thinking?
You ask them!”
Simple, but essential.
That’s it for another month of news, views and insights.
For me, the best thing about this email newsletter format is that you can simply reply if you have questions or comments. Please feel free to do so, I’m always happy to follow-up with more detail on any of the stories I share, especially if that can help you build your own brand and business. Hit ‘Reply’, speak soon.