ADOI Blog

Why CEOs are the brand, and very little else should be.

mackattack on 05 23, 2008

by MAC ATTACK

Mac Attack Yes I said it. Some of you out there are reading this purely out of disagreement with the title, and out to just read what I am drivelling about. Stay anyway, maybe I can learn you a thing or two.

YTL is a brand. It brings with it a vision of opulence and luxury to many, and to the few who know, a sense that within three letters lie a depth in astute business sense, and a stable track record in the business of making cold hard cash. Lots of it, as a matter of fact.

Behind it is the man who built the conglomerate through dedication, sheer hard work and an ability to demonstrate to the political echelon that he can deliver, hence developing a close rapport that allowed them the opportunity for unprecedented growth. It represents to many the brilliant show of a raw entrepreneur with the fortitude and perseverance to lift himself to the very top, very fast.

But the brand now is all about style, first class pedigree and a show of opulence that regards money as something that should be spent quickly in the pursuit of material gain, before it goes out of style. The brand resonates with the implication that being associated with it means you are ‘Billy Deep Pockets’ and money is merely an afterthought. That’s not Yeoh Tiong Lay. That’s Francis Yeoh, the smooth and highly cultured gentleman who now helms YTL – taking it from a single listed entity to a powerhouse conglomerate with five listed companies. He’s the brand.

Take Air Asia as another example. Take a look at Tony Fernandes, the man who despite his immense personal fortune and the Datukship that same along with it, still behaves like the man on the street. He puts out the image that he is Mr. Ordinary (he is), quite the opposite of the extraordinary manner that he took an ailing carrier bleeding money as if it was in a mall belonging to YTL, and made it a low cost carrier that sold affordable tickets to ordinary or cost conscious folks and with that, turned it into profitability within a year.

Yet he is seldom seen without a tee shirt and the trademark baseball cap – now looking worn for wear – and that boyish smile that is offered to anyone he meets. Air Asia, now everyone can fly, and everyone can meet Tony and come off feeling that the chap is the cat’s whiskers. Damn, this guy definitely is the brand. Look at his Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Fernandes), it’s almost like the guy wrote it himself, on a desktop late one night after someone told him about Wikipedia. All the traits of the common ignoramus – despite his stellar education and upper middle class upbringing (he is the son of a doctor).

Then there is Idris Jala, helming the hot seat as the head honcho of Malaysia Airlines. Introducing himself as the simple man who grew up in a remote village called Bario – where access was previously only by foot – he set about putting a besieged national carrier losing a billion ringgit a year with cash reserves lasting only three months before it folded, into a profitable service provider making a billion a year in profits. Ever the humble person, he credits the staff of Malaysia Airlines, stating that he is merely a change manager who put emphasis on the P&L on a daily basis and empowering his team of executives to achieve great things based on that philosophy.

The man is not without fangs, as it were. Like any great brand, he strikes at the right time and hits out for our emotional loyalty with a kind of suddenness that is unexpected for such a low-key and unassuming individual. His moves of late have even ruffled the usually unflappable Tony Fernandes.

Idris took a pay-cut to serve Malaysia Airlines, and as he said at a function recently where he was the star speaker, its national service for him.

The crowd saw him as the Malaysian prodigal son returning to save a national flag carrier from being driven deep into the ground. More people have started flying Malaysia Airlines again – and with pride. They see an embodiment of the man in the brand, going around getting things done and making sure his priorities are right. Heck, they are now low fare too but with all the amenities of what they truly are, a full service carrier.

I believe that every agency that wins a pitch should spend at least a week following the CEO around and observing his personality. That’s the brand right there, and if he is any good, his personality should permeate across the entire organisation.

If you are a CEO and you do not represent the brand, or the brand itself is a character foreign to you, leave. Go find something else to do, because frankly, in the bigger scheme of things you are simply the wrong person.

Comments (10)

Jeff Zweig says:

May 23, 2008 at 9:35 am

MA, i certainly do agree with what you say in terms of making sure the CEO embodies what a company’s brand is all about. of course a brand still needs to live on long after its CEO retires, quits, gets fired, etc.

so in order to retain stakeholder confidence, a brand cannot primarily be only about the CEO because if he or she no longer works at the company what happens then? in the case of someone like richard branson or warren buffett, this is certainly a risk for their companies because the virgin and the berkshire hathaway brand are so closely intertwined with the vision and the personalities of their CEOs.

i think adpeople should devise strategies that leverage the “greatness” of the brand’s current CEO whilst ensuring that the brand can naturally live on without him/her.

one way to do this is to run a CEO blog, where the CEO posts thoughts about his/her vision for the brand’s industry and for the company, comments on industry news and trends, starts new trends, talks about the brand’s latest CSR initiatives (especially good for local public listed companies given KLSE’s recent focus on this area), etc.

couple this with an integrated podcasting, vodcasting, video sharing, social networking strategy built on top of a proper search engine optimisation foundation and you have the start of something powerful–not only for the current CEO but for any new CEO that comes on board after an old CEO leaves.

jeff zweig
chief guru, web guru asia
http://www.webguruasia.com
Malik says:

May 24, 2008 at 7:24 am

Agreed on a few points. However what happens when a CEO brands himself as the brand for his own personal agenda , making sure he is seen in every photograph and press release ? In other words, the brand is only an excuse for bigger things .
Discretee says:

May 26, 2008 at 3:26 am

If CEO’s are to be the “brand” then we have huge problems on our hand. Ask any marketing & advertising professional worth his/her salt and they will all tell you that a brand relationship is purely a emotional one. Usage of the brand is rational. Therefore, by putting a “face” to the brand through its current CEO there is the innate danger of making the brand have the “personality” of its CEO. and as humans we immediately react with a “like it/dislike it” reaction when a “identifiable personality is put infront”. Your two exmples…AirAsia & MAS– lets us question the –”what after TF & IJ’??? How does those two brands project themselves? If you look at Virgin as an example…RB was the face, was the personality in the intial formative years across the industries Virgin operated in. However there was a planned “brand progression” bcuz now one can see Virgin’s brand personality is independent of its owner/ceo clearly across the indistries.And yet its ‘maverickness’ is common as a dominant brand personality.
Similarly with YTL, the associations accredited to the brand have come about through years of careful development with arts and to a small but wealthy group of people this brand appeals (ie investors, high end residential purchasers, financiers, etc) but to the common man on the street what exactly does YTL stand for? For a brand to be successful ie common recall across consumer groups it needs to have a single relationship point. This is not connected with the CEO–tho’ its always the CEO (in the asian context) who is seen as the face of the brand as he/she drives the deliverables.
Sceptical says:

May 26, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Remember that famous CEO brand Tajuddin Ramli? Nothing went right…
yasmin says:

May 26, 2008 at 7:15 pm

this was exactly what i said in the new straits times, and at my 4A’s speech, last year!
farouk says:

May 27, 2008 at 8:12 am

Brand’s value measurement had always with the company’s name(eg Interbrand, Y&R BAV) not on the CEO’s alone. No doubt CEO sets the vision for their staff to follow.
Ivan says:

May 27, 2008 at 8:52 am

Totally disagree on the above statement and i found it narrow minded. If the companies are dealing with Cement or Construction material i dont thinlk the CEO should put their face on the packaging.
Jeff Zweig says:

May 28, 2008 at 4:27 pm

Ivan, are you sure? I don’t think Mac Attack meant that every CEO should literally appear on the packaging of a company’s products.

In your example of a construction material company, perhaps the CEO could champion the idea of environmentally sustainable materials and make this idea part of his/her “CEO brand identity” about that area (assuming this is a relevant USP for the business).

Then as I described in my post above, use a CEO blog to show (and not tell) stakeholders/analysts/partners/customers/employees/potential investors/construction industry players/the press/etc. just how the CEO makes this aspect of the brand come alive.

Even if the CEO leaves the organization, the CEO blog can still be used to promote the new CEO in the same way and could feature how the new leader will carry on/enhance the tradition left by the outgoing CEO, etc.

jeff zweig
chief guru, web guru asia
http://www.webguruasia.com
Zafrul says:

May 29, 2008 at 5:57 am

I believe it’s quite true, the CEO should embody the essence of the brand, hence why choosing the right CEO is extremely important. However, I believe the company as an entity should have an underlying personality or persona, and that persona should resonate with the leader. And usually company personality are built on personalities of the founder, hence why you see Tony Fernandez = Air Asia, Richard Brenson = Virgin and if you look at Sony even today and study their history, it still embodies the fundamentals of the founder (can’t remember his name). As for YTL, the brand and believes of YTL didn’t start from Fancis Yeoh, but still has many of the fundamentals from Yeoh Tiong Lay. Yes, Francis did take YTL few more steps ahead and into the next century, but I don’t see too much fundamental difference in the YTL brand, besides fresh and updates visual identity,they still all have the same believes.

As for MAS, I’m sorry but IJ is still not the brand for me, MAS is still MAS. They have new leader yes, who seems to finally be able to fix things, but the brand and company is still stuck with old brand mind-set and ‘30 year long’ employees. It’s not easy to change anyone’s mindset. Same can be said about what Wahid has done to TM, and now that he’s gone, what is TM’s brand?

My 2 cents – The brand and the founders are always closely connected, but then a brand/company should be set forward for the next 100 years, and will need to find leaders or CEOs resonates with the brand/company. Otherwise, like someone said, get them out and get someone new in…

Zafrul Azhar Noordin
Co-Founder, Motionworks
farouk says:

May 30, 2008 at 9:01 am

Nowadays marketing department is no more exclusive and structured like stovepipe differentiated from other dept such ad accts and hr. In fact all of the employees are doing marketing(holistic) specially in service indusrty. Thus marketing people had to come out with a term called branding to be relevant in the company, something that had been practised by the traders in Rom when they do markings on their pottery.

Again i think corp brand is more relenvant than CEO brand for going concern basis just like Bill Gates never name his com. based on his name or Steve on Apple Comp.