The Rise and Remit of the Chief Brand Officer

There’s a new chief in town: the chief brand officer (CBO).

Does this mean the CMO role is becoming obsolete? Not at all. It simply means many companies are recognizing the shifting landscape of customer engagement and the implications and opportunities for better brand-building.

In most organizations, the CBO role complements the CMO, where both leaders have distinct swim lanes and collaboration spheres. If well-integrated, the desired outcome is the win-win of a stronger, more cohesive brand, enhanced customer engagement and a thriving business.

But before we get to the classic 1 + 1 = 3, let’s take a step back to better understand the “why” behind the recent rise of the CBO.

Why a CBO, and why now?

Technological acceleration is transforming how people connect with brands, and thus how brand relationships are built. One casualty of technology acceleration, however, is the deceleration of a mass market—an environment that enabled a communications-led approach to brand-building.

Remember when tens of millions seeing a spectacular 30-second ad more than three times could generate brand awareness and persuasion? That is not happening today. More than 50% of U.S. households have cut the cord, which also cuts off a vast swath of traditional mass advertising.

Today, we humans skim past thousands of ad-bits daily as we surf, scroll and swipe. Yet beyond the world of scrolling ads and influencers, our everyday lives intersect with major brands through routine, always-on customer engagement channels. These experiences can engage or repel us and, in so doing, impact how we feel about the brand, our net brand impression and our willingness to recommend and even buy.

Customer-experience channels as brand-builders

In many companies, some of the aforementioned customer-experience channels can make or break a customer relationship, and many companies are investing heavily in AI and net promoter score (NPS) to optimize these touch points.

Unfortunately, across industries, AI engines often pull from the same deep data pools, and NPS measures generic industry outcomes. On their own, these strategies can reduce friction and improve the customer’s experience, but absent a differentiating brand strategy, they can also accelerate a sea of sameness. Factoring out convenience, what’s the reason to choose one company?

That’s where brand comes in—more specifically, brand strategy and its application not simply to marketing and advertising but also to the customer experience writ large. 

The world’s greatest companies offer a unique, branded experience that invites the customer into a “brand dance”—an inviting, multisensory experience that is purposefully designed to engage customers emotionally, to deliver feelings of delight, accomplishment and appreciation, on a one-to-one basis.

Think Nike House of Innovation stores blending physical and digital worlds, offering personalized services like Nike By You; think Apple retail Specialists empowered to assist selection and complete checkout where you stand; think Tesla Rangers who will service your vehicle at your home; think Spotify’s preference-empowered app complete with a member’s Discover Weekly playlist. Each represents an experience that embodies brand personality traits and behavioral characteristics, bringing each brand to life with its own brand dance.

Prescient, brand-savvy companies are recognizing every customer touch point as both a customer engagement and a brand-building opportunity. And many are creating the CBO role to sit outside of marketing. After all, marketing isn’t branding; today, branding is a much bigger umbrella. And as the system of experiences that defines the brand expands and extends well beyond the limits of the typical marketing organization, so too must caring for the brand extend beyond marketing.

The CBO-CMO relationship, or making 1 + 1 = 3

Think of the CBO as a company’s brand-driven change agent. Through both inspiration and influence, the CBO works across the enterprise to build and deliver the brand from the inside out.

The CBO role requires both brand and organizational savvy: An effective CBO defines the brand, its personality and signature behavioral characteristics, and uses this brand strategy to engage all functions touching the customer. It may start with marketing and advertising, but it extends to legal, technology, product development and innovation teams—even HR and customer service. After all, in many service industries, the people are the brand.

Marketing and advertising continue to be crucial for generating initial brand interest, while day-to-day contact and experience channels create additional opportunity to enhance customer engagement, shape brand impression and build loyalty.

And how well CBOs and CMOs respect each other’s swim lanes while collaborating is a key driver of success. Balancing the CBO’s on-brand customer experience focus with the CMO’s storytelling abilities and budgets can reap brand benefits. When the CMO and CBO are aligned, the breadth of on-brand customer touch points expands dramatically, enhancing brand and business value in an increasingly fragmented, omnichannel world.

Think about the potential of owned customer experience channels as always-on, experiential, 3D, surround-sound brand billboards, and quantify the potential value by multiplying total channel interactions with analogous ratings and CPMs. Start by applying familiar media terms, like reach, frequency and total impressions, to quantify the always-on media value of different channels. Then take it further: What’s the time spent? What’s the overall experience quality, and how does it contribute to the customer’s sense of accomplishment? Moreover, what does a customer recognize as unique to your brand that leaves them with a lasting feeling of delight and affiliation?

It’s often eye-popping to see the media value of every interaction—it makes the case that a media plan is lying dormant in each experience channel. And it begs the question: How does a company apply as much brand insight and creativity to every channel as it does to marketing?

Does your company need a CBO?

Take a holistic view of your customers across your marketing, media and customer experience touch points. What’s the frequency, duration and brand value of each individually? Of customer experience versus marketing touch points?

If you find that the moments that matter most to your customers aren’t limited to your marketing and advertising but also live in your owned channels, then you’ve also identified some brand-building potential and an opportunity to differentiate your experience from your competitors. And that’s when a CBO may be just what your company, your brand and your business really need.