Three-quarters (74%) of CMOs have revealed that they have found the last six months to be even more challenging for brand management than during the height of the pandemic.
Driven by insight from brand management platform Frontify, this revelation highlights the ongoing repercussions of stubborn global inflation and a generalised financial downturn.
The research also revealed that marketers are increasingly resorting to resorted to reduced external agency support (46%) and departmental budget cuts (45%), which they say is significantly impacting their brand building efforts, with price hikes on products posing an additional challenge for marketers (47%).
Marketers are still standing by their brand investment commitments in the face of these adverse condition however, with 88% of CMOs stating that it’s especially important to invest in brands during a recession.
“In this time of uncertainty, one thing remains certain – brand leaders are under more pressure than ever to build brand resilience and maintain brand equity, but brand resilience isn’t achieved overnight – it requires long term commitment and sustained effort,” Frontify CEO and founder, Roger Dudler said.
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“It’s critical to understand the key priorities that marketing leaders have as well as what drives the most results so that CMOs can gain confidence in spending their budgets effectively and win the marathon of brand resilience. CMOs have to be strategic about what resources they are using, and how to make the most of their investments.”
With a renewed focus on brand resilience, marketers have identified brand distinctiveness (47%) as the key factor in maintaining solidity through challenging times, closely followed by having a strong performance team (41%), and strong links between customer insights and brand (40%).
Despite these conditions, Frontify has found that marketers are still investing in rebrands and brand refreshes, with five in ten (51%) doing so over the past two years. Whilst most (79%) CMOs have been happy with the results, 41% have said that they are worried about brand refreshes creating extra work for their branding team and leading to an increased risk of branding errors (40%)
On rebranding, Nordstrom VP of creative, Red Godfrey added: “In terms of preparing to rebrand, it’s a hard process for internal teams who need time for strategic thinking while also delivering the critical everyday needs of the business. This is why it’s so important to find the right external brand expertise to provide the focus and the partnership needed for this endeavour.
“The greatest cost risk with any rebrand is always your physical assets. Digitally, you can rebrand overnight. As soon as the work’s done, you can put it out into the world. But when you’ve got 100’s of physical stores with large scale architectural logos, the cost of rebranding starts to hit multiple millions. This can be paralysing, so you need to have a strong stomach, to accept that to do what’s ultimately right for your customer and therefore the brand, you’re going to have to get very comfortable with ‘fighting’ for your rebrand.”
