Regardless of how you define a brand, it’s time we stop treating it as an expense and recognise it for what it is: one of the most important assets a business owns. There, I said it.
While many will agree with this statement, others will still dismiss brand as colours, images, or something that sits neatly at the end of a project. It’s even worse when it’s reduced to “making things look nice” or “colouring in”. And while design does play a role, brand is so much bigger than that.
Brand is lived through the experience way beyond marketing. It shows up in sales conversations, customer service, how people are managed, and the culture that’s built day to day. Strong brands exist when everyone in the organisation understands the part they play.
These written thoughts and rambles unpack why brand can’t just sit with marketing, where it really lives in a business, what shared ownership looks like in practice, and why it matters even more as a business grows.
Why the marketing team can’t solely be responsible for brand
Marketers are often asked to “own” brand without having full control over the things that shape it. Yes, marketing can play a huge role in defining a brand’s positioning, what a business stands for, and how it shows up. But that thinking only works when it’s brought to life across the rest of the organisation.
Brand shows up in the products or services on offer, the prices that are set, where and how a business is found, and the people behind it. It’s every interaction someone has with a company. If brand is constantly batted back to something that sits marketing’s desk, what’s promised won’t always be delivered. Messaging may say one thing while the experience says another, and that disconnect is quickly felt.
Where brand should live in a business
The one thing to take away is that brand lives with EVERY department. Marketing can help guide it, but it’s the responsibility of the whole business to represent the brand, deliver consistency, and build trust over time.
Here’s a snapshot of how that shows up in practice:
Leadership:
Brand has to ladder back up to the wider business strategy. Without that connection, leadership can end up pulling teams in one direction while the brand pulls in another.
When business strategy and brand strategy are aligned, the direction of travel is clear. Decisions are easier to make, priorities are clear, and teams move with more confidence. Brand also lives in leadership behaviour. The standards leaders set and the decisions they make all shape how the brand is experienced internally and externally. The impact of this can be huge, so it’s worth paying extra attention to.
Product or service:
Your product or service is one of the strongest expressions of your brand. When the brand is clear, development teams have a much easier job. A shared understanding will help guide what’s built, how it’s built, and the value it’s meant to deliver.
If a brand positions itself as high-quality, premium and carefully considered, for example, but in reality the product or service is clunky or frustrating, the experience will always speak louder than words. You end up signalling one thing and delivering another. Products and services that genuinely live up to their promise strengthen the brand and build loyalty over time.
Sales:
Sales decisions communicate brand, whether you intend them to or not.
If you position yourself as a premium brand but rely heavily on discounting, deep promotions, or are seen in a discount store, you might gleefully enjoy short-term gains, but often at the expense of long-term brand value. You’re inadvertently telling people that your brand isn’t worth the price you set.
The same applies to tone; if you claim to be supportive and human, but your sales approach is super pushy or one-sided, you’re not translating what you say in your brand guidelines deck to your actual behaviour.
Customer service:
This is a pretty important one. Brand shows up in how customers are spoken to, how issues are handled, and how quickly someone responds.
These moments have a big impact on how a brand is remembered, what they say tell others and whether they’ll choose to come back.
A brand that positions itself as caring needs to sound that way when a customer has an issue, as well as when things are going well. When teams understand the brand and feel trusted to use judgment, they can resolve issues in a way that builds trust rather than damages it.
People and culture:
Brand starts inside the business, with who you hire, how people are onboarded, and what behaviours you encourage. They all shape the brand long before the customer comes into contact with it.
Culture and brand aren’t the same thing, but they’re closely linked. Culture influences how people behave when no one is watching. Brand gives that behaviour direction. When the two are aligned, the experience customers receive feels consistent. When they’re not, cracks start to show, and the brand’s true colours eventually come through.
What company-wide brand support looks like in practice
Share ownership doesn’t have to be complicated, time-consuming or bound by rigid guidelines. It needs shared understanding, the right tools, and trust.
Of course, some elements should and must sit with marketing, and that’s fine. As long as boundaries are clear, teams can confidently play their part without diluting the brand or causing any causing any unfortunate mishaps.
In short, everyone should be able to explain who the business is for, what it stands for, and how it should feel to interact with. At first, this may require some reassessment and adjustments to how teams work, but over time, once it’s embedded, it becomes second nature. Training and upskilling always help, but so does making it fun. Why not give teams mini brand missions, and make brand building exciting, something they want to live and breathe?
Why brand matters, especially for growing businesses
As a business grows, there are inevitably more people involved, more touchpoints, and therefore more opportunities for inconsistency. Early on, you may have been the brand. But with a team in place, you need to be able to share that knowledge and understanding.
Without clear foundations, experiences start to vary depending on who someone speaks to. That inconsistency can chip away at what you’re known for and weaken your offering.
A clear brand helps new hires get up to speed faster, gives customers a consistent experience, and provides a filter for decision-making. Brand will always evolve, so don’t be afraid to change and adapt as you grow, but having solid foundations will save you time, energy, and money in the long run.
One final ramble
Thinking about brand as a shared responsibility gives everyone a role to play in building something that actually matters. And as I said at the start, brand is one of the most important assets a business owns.
But people can only protect and build the brand when they’re clear on who the business is, what it stands for, the value it offers, and how it’s different from what’s already out there. Without that, things become vague, inconsistent and hard to defend.
When brand is understood, supported, and lived by everyone, it stops being something marketing “does” and becomes something that supports the whole business. It builds trust, creates consistency, and delivers long-term value.
If you’re not quite there yet, that’s okay. By reading this article, I’m going to assume you’re thinking about it, and that’s the first step. And if you’re ready to invest properly in your brand, we’d love to talk. It’s our bread and butter. Helping you achieve your goals gives us so much joy and excitement, so we’d love to chat.
By Katie Neal, Co-Founder, The Piñata Lab