Championship Points

Establishing, building, and extending a brand, such as the NBA, requires ongoing, hands-on management and leadership at every turn. When attempting to create a great brand, organizations must do the following:

  • Appreciate that great brands, like the Yankees, deliver the rare combination of a compelling name, logo, customer service, employee commitment, and quality of product or service, among other marketable attributes.

  • Retain a brand management visionary, a near-mercenary who intimately understands brand building and the organization's objectives and goals.

  • Identify internal brand leaders (your David Stern) and messengers (your Michael Jordan).

  • Recognize the breadth of stakeholders that impact the brand, ranging from employees (athletes) to distributors (TV networks) to those involved in a product's aftermarket.

  • Realize branding opportunities and seize them as Swingline did.

  • Commit to providing stellar customer service, listening intently to every (potential) customer regardless of his or her current spending and loyalty to the company.

  • Allocate human and financial resources to customer development. Look at your potential workforce as seriously as basketball teams look at the NBA draft. Failing to cultivate and replenish customers leads to a decline in market share and, by extension, brand value.

  • Consistently invest in the core brand. It's less expensive and more effective to investment spend to protect a brand name than it is to allocate time and resources to rehabilitate a damaged one.

  • Expand the brand to international markets after first allocating the necessary human and financial resources to greatly reduce the probability of harming it on a global basis.

  • Protect the brand at all costs, even if doing so requires measured micromanagement of it. A company's reputation and integrity with consumers takes years to develop but only minutes to undermine.

  • Manage its message in every place it is seen or heard.

Great organizations, even those that have risen to become global brands, are required to periodically reinvent or reposition themselves. This generally occurs after successful branding efforts have led the business into new industry segments or following regulatory or other industry-altering developments that mandate the business revitalize its operations.



On the Ball. What You Can Learn About Business from America's Sports Leaders
On the Ball: What You Can Learn About Business From Americas Sports Leaders
ISBN: 013100963X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 93

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