Despite the evidence that brand building helps create value over the long term, new research indicates that over half of business leaders – including 30% of senior-level marketers – rate their knowledge of brand building as average to very poor.

That’s according to the Board-Brand Rift, a new report conducted by the Financial Times in partnership with the Institute Of Practitioners In Advertising (IPA) and based on a global survey of more than 500 FT readers, 43% of whom were C-level executives.

Find out more on the Board-Brand Rift at today’s WARC in Cannes sessions, where the FT’s David Buttle will be discussing the reports findings and Peter Field will be presenting new research into the link between creativity and effectiveness.
This found that less than a third of organisations use ‘brand health’ metrics, which report on factors such as salience, distinctiveness and favourability, at board level.

Alongside that, there is a widespread misalignment between the marketing tactics perceived by senior leaders to be most effective at building brands and those which are proven to be drivers of those objectives.

For example, over half of business leaders ranked social media as one of the most effective channels for brand building – coming second only to word-of-mouth – when the evidence places it bottom of the list.

Leaders also expressed a desire for better measurement of the commercial impact of brands and claimed that this shortcoming is the primary reason for what has become an imbalanced approach to marketing investment .

“Our aim with this research was to get inside businesses and understand the real driving forces behind the recent changes in marketing investment,” said David Buttle, Global Marketing Director, Commercial for the Financial Times.

“The data uncovered a worrying lack of confidence in brand management, both within and beyond the marketing department,” he added.

Sourced from IPA; additional content by WARC staff