It’s an interesting time to be a tech CEO.
In one corner, you have Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg challenging each other to a cage fight, while Musk calls the lawyers over the launch of Meta’s Threads. In another, Linda Yaccarino, freshly arrived from NBCUniversal, is trying to take charge of X – the brand formerly known as Twitter – as a company and steer it through this next chapter in the evolution of social media.
Not all CEOs have this colourful or dramatic challenge. But for all, no matter the size of the business or the stage at which the c-suite leader entered, their goal is growth. And whatever stage of the growth journey a company is at, ‘brand’ can act as rocket fuel in the right CEO’s hands.
Startup energy
If you are a new CEO or taking charge at a startup, the focus is always to drive disruptive innovation, attract investors, prepare for an IPO, build for scale and recruit the best talent. But in a crowded market, you also need to think about brand and how your company will stand out.
A priority should be creating the foundational glue that drives consistency across all touch-points, the kind that influences decision-making across the board. This isn’t simply a matter of the visual manifestation of your brand (such as its digital presence, billboards or TV ads) but what your brand says about itself when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. Which will become increasingly critical as you grow.
As the company evolves dynamically, the startup CEO must ensure they hire the right talent, not just for today’s portfolio of tools but for future products. They must see that the best culture fits today will also be culture fits for the near future. In the current market, where tech talent remains in high demand, startups need to win the internal comms battle as well as the external one.
Shifting sands
Under the company brand, there will be individual products and, of course, every CEO needs to think about their product portfolio. In a fast-paced tech landscape, companies usually lead with a product-first strategy and often emphasise an initial hero product. But what happens when market trends shift and you need to evolve products, solutions and what you’re known for?
Meta is a case in point – it changed its name from Facebook to reflect its changing brands and products and to signal where its priorities lay. Now, with the launch of Threads, the sands are shifting again. Meanwhile, the changes at X, as we now know it, are coming thick and fast in all areas, but is its rapid evolution right for the user and its need to appeal more to advertisers? It’s a task Yaccarino must grapple with while fighting off the fresh threat from Threads and user grief associated with the demise of Twitter.
Here, brand can help again. As the promise of experience delivered through the product, a strong brand empowers a durable system for long-term equity, memorable and recognisable consumer journeys and continuous product innovation.
Take financial services company Stripe, often cited as a bellwether for 2010s-era fintech startups. Its business was supercharged by the e-commerce boom during the pandemic. Now, as it prepares to go public, Stripe must shift its focus, attracting larger corporate enterprises as well as e-commerce players to its payment processing tools. Its brand needs to reflect long-term value and not just immediate conversion.
Real-time development platform Unity, which is rolling out a raft of AI products and tools for gaming, is another example.
Although the company has always been involved with artificial intelligence, it now sees a need to own this space. At the same time, it needs to remain accessible and consider the ethics of AI, too. So, one consideration for Unity’s CEO and marketing team: is its brand and its products human-focused enough?
An enduring brand: platform for growth
For established organisations, the goal is always to increase relevance, fend off new entrants and continue to innovate. The CEO must ensure their brand stands out among competitors, attracts new audiences and reflects cultural shifts.
Brand can bring ideas to life in an actionable way through experiences and culture, so that the company stands the test of time across all touch-points. While helping the CEO to navigate changing priorities: such as the increasing importance of sustainability, for example, or, in the tech sector, government regulation. Even if a negative news story hits the company from left field, a strong brand can help shape the CEO’s response.
Take Airbnb’s journey. As it has evolved from startup to giant accommodation platform, the brand has had to reflect many shifts, not least the Covid pandemic, and negative press in terms of its effect on cities. During the pandemic years, the brand has worked hard to place more emphasis on experiences. With the return of travel post-pandemic, it must accommodate changes in the landscape that have seen people travel not just for vacation but for business, mental health or working from home as a digital nomad.
Nowadays, Airbnb must balance its sense of community with the idea that each customer’s needs are individually valued, while at the same time positioning itself as a trusted marketplace in terms of safety and security. Investing in brand has underpinned each stage of its evolution; helping the company to retain a sense of magic in its shared experience, whether that be through synergies or platform or communal interactions.
New priorities
In a rapidly evolving sector such as tech, the CEO must also aim to cultivate a sense of excitement among consumers. It’s imperative that tech brands evolve quickly when needed (remember MySpace?) and we all know Zuck’s internal motto is “Move fast and break things”.
However, even in tech, company brands that have been around for a long time can become known in a very specific way. That can stand in their way when they try something new, explore new priorities, and consider new audiences.
The CEO’s task is to ensure that they chart a new path forward without losing their existing equity. Remember when a single tweet from Kylie Jenner about a Snapchat redesign wiped over a billion dollars off its stock price?
To avoid that kind of scenario, CEOs need to identify the company’s essential DNA that informs everything it does. Again, here’s where brand can play a role. A strong brand proposition and purpose can identify that red thread across an organisation’s lifecycle and into the future, aligning on the core values that have persisted over time and those that dial up to match evolving societal needs.
So whether or not you’re a cage fighting tech titan, a startup founder fizzing with ideas or an existing CEO trying to steer a company through tumultuous times, ensuring your company establishes a strong and consistent brand is a good place to start.
Brand will help you harness startup energy, but also build long term value and focus as you evolve your products, people and purpose.
So, as you negotiate all the other moving parts of your company, keep brand at the centre of your vision and it will grow with you in a way that accelerates the growth of your business. No cage fighting required.
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