I was a Brand Executive in a local bank. In most companies, a Brand Executive handles advertising & marketing for the brand – determining the campaign to sell products, the channel to reach target audience, the approach to take, etc. But these, in actual fact, should be handled by a person known as Marketing Executive. A Brand Executive has a totally different job scope that somehow overlaps with various departments in the company, thus he/she is often confused as a Marketing person. Having say this, the definition of the roles of a Brand Executive differs depending on the perception of the hiring company.

What does a Brand Executive do (in a nutshell)? Create, understand and know a person well enough to ensure that the personality of that person is reflected accurately to the surrounding people. In this case, the person is the brand and the personality is the values of the brand.

90% of the time, a company does not hire a Brand Executive as this role is thrust to the Marketing team to handle as part of their portfolio. And 90% of the companies that hire a Brand Executive usually already have a brand that requires taking care of. So if you ever get offered to be a Brand Executive in a company that is about to come out with a new brand, it’s a golden opportunity to take it up. Because then, you will get the chance to create a brand – to give birth to a person, mould him, feed him, watch him grow and make him your precious baby. This is the very reason I willingly put aside my creative career to join the bank because I was hired to do re-branding. It’s almost as good as coming out with a new brand. And in the downturn of economy and bad times, I identified this as a golden opportunity I should not miss so that I can walk away one day and say, “You see that brand? I am responsible to ensure the strength of the brand identity. It was my baby.”

A day in a Brand Executive’s life would be? A mystery. Every day is a mystery. No one day is ever the same even though the main idea of branding is ensuring a consistent brand throughout all communication channels. Think of it this way: A brand appears everywhere – name card, letterhead, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, bus, billboards, LRT trains, etc. As a Brand Executive, you have to ensure that everything that goes out with the brand name come across your desk before it goes out. It’s your job to ensure that the brand logo is accurate, including the colours, the curves, the type face, the usage of it.

For example, if you are the Brand Executive for Nike, you have to ensure that the tagline that goes out is ‘Just Do It’ and not ‘Juz do it’. Something as simple as that has a big impact on branding. A brand can travel very far, thus making it a challenge to take care of it, to groom it the way we want it to be and maintain that personality it should carry. Thus, making every day a mystery to the Brand Executive. You could be doing everything under the sun because the brand is going everywhere and you are moving with it.

If my boss asks me to come out with a new brand, how do I go about it? Call me and I’ll be at your office immediately! LOL. Sorry, I get very excited when it comes to creating new brands. A client approached me some time last year to assist him to come out with a new brand. He has a new product and he needs it branded so that he can push out to the market with something significant instead of just another festival delight.

I grilled him with various questions from who is the target market to distribution channel to consumer’s benefits. Then I sat down and thought of a name that would reflect the born ‘baby’. With the name, naturally come the personality, characteristics and colour. Put everything together and (boom!) you’ve got yourself a brand. The exciting part is you have the power to decide how the brand will turn out to be – fun like UMobile, economical like DiGi, red like Hotlink, green like Body Shop, etc.

You mean, generally, branding is like taking care of a child? Yes, it’s 99% identical. You wouldn’t want your child to be presented as a boy when she is a girl, same goes to branding – you wouldn’t want your brand to be presented as a serious product when it is a fun object. You wouldn’t want people to think your logo is red when in actual fact, it is really pink – just the same as you wouldn’t want people to think your child is sissy for wearing pink when he is a gentleman.

Branding is one essential element that companies tend to overlook. Success is not about spending a lot of money advertising your brand, shouting out loud the advantages your brand can offer or forcing your brand to be a household name. It’s about a personality that target audience can relate to. It’s about TRUST.

And the keyword to Branding is CONSISTENCY. The more consistent is your brand personality, the stronger it will grow, and the more trust-worthy it will be for your consumers. Make your brand special, make it your thumbprint. That’s what branding is all about, that’s what a Brand Executive does – grooming a brand like it would to his/her own child.

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Main Responsibilities:

• Ensures branding consistency of communication collaterals according to Corporate and Communications Identity related guidelines, processes and policies.
• Ensures that all Corporate and Communications guidelines are compliant with those of regulators and partners such as Government Associations, Country Law and Regulations, Federal Law, etc.
• Custodian of Company’s branding and communication elements, including but not limited to softcopies of logo files and marketing communications materials.

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