PSFK’s Good Brands Report 2009 highlights the fundamental ability by these companies to pursue their daily business commitments, be responsible, innovate, and be social while they retain Zen-like focus on what they’re about.
The report highlights several characteristics used to rate and rank the top 10 brands. Utility, experimentation, design, community and listening, to changing the model, going beyond the 30-second ad and prioritizing the environment all made the cut as desirable business traits and behaviors. Being helpful is the new black – utility is a call to operate as part of a system or context and understanding how to behave or your role and contribution within it.
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According to Philip Kotler, there are two types of CEOs — those who know they don’t understand marketing, and those who do not know they don’t understand marketing. They specialize in operational expertise, engineering, technical skills, and often sales. For a time we saw a few rising stars making their way up from marketing and customer support – these days you find fewer of them, especially in mature industries and in companies that need a new injection of growth. And many companies do.
That is too bad, because for an organization to grow beyond incremental gains – which in fact can be decreasing profitability, if you look close enough – once it gets to a certain stage of growth, you really need someone who understands marketing. To grow profitably, you need to make serious business decisions on the product/service line, service delivery, mix side of things. I favor the 90/10/90 rule — dedicate 90% of your efforts for the 10% of activities that will yeild 90% of the profit. It’s an outside-in approach.
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