CEO Branding, selling with a face

If I asked you who Jeff Bezos is you would most likely answer me: “The founder of Amazon!” Same speech if I asked you who Steve Jobs is, you would almost certainly answer me: "The head of Apple!"

These are just some of the countless examples that can be brought to support the thesis according to which the name and face of a natural person (almost always the same creator of the company) are identified with the company itself , ensuring that any affect the image of the brand.

In this article we will see precisely the characteristics of this phenomenon which takes the name of CEO Branding .

What is CEO Branding?

In the business world, the term CEO is now used to indicate the manager of a company or the managing director; alongside the term " branding " it becomes an essential component of a communication strategy aimed at attracting potential new customers and, consequently, expanding the brand's market.

Since, in this case, the personal branding activity is addressed directly to a CEO, it is referred to as “CEO branding”.

It should be emphasized that, when we speak of CEO branding, we are not necessarily referring exclusively to medium-large companies; in fact, even the founders of startups are discovering that effective personal branding can be a great advantage for their new company , an advantage that takes the form not only in obtaining greater visibility on the reference market but also in presenting the founder/startup to the investment community.

How does CEO Branding work?

In today's collective imagination, the CEO of a company is perceived as "bad". This is because, more often than not, the social status of the CEO causes him to be represented as the "rich and arrogant boss" who exploits the "poor and humble employee". Despite everything, however, the good always wins over the bad.

This is why CEO branding is to be considered – in the context of corporate communication – a fundamental aspect which aims to define the right perception by the public towards the leader of an organization.

In fact, consumers are more interested in "buying" from a real person they "know", so much so that most of them will most likely want to do business and interact with companies that align with their values.

The embodiment of these values, together with what we can define as the human face of the company, is represented precisely by the image of the CEO; in fact, it must be able to pass them on to its customers, fully representing the identity of its business.

Social CEO: the modern boss

In today's society, the CEO has the opportunity to satisfy these ambitions through the use of digital channels. In fact, we speak of Social CEO when the CEO of a company uses social networks to increase their visibility and improve their perception by users.

The ultimate goal of such an activity is, of course, to bring a return on investment.

It goes without saying that a CEO capable of making the best use of social networks in order to obtain a fair number of followers will find himself in a more advantageous position than a CEO who does not use these tools.

Benefits of the Social CEO

For Social CEOs, digital technologies have now almost taken the place of that type of activity that was once called " public relations "; today it is much easier to communicate with your potential consumers through a Facebook page, Twitter or a LinkedIn profile.

This communicative opportunity must be used and exploited to the maximum to one's advantage, so that the image of the CEO appears "in all its glory"!

Therefore it is clear that the CEO can obtain a series of notable advantages that reflect on him and on the company's brand reputation, specifically:

• Improvement of the reputation of the CEO and of the company;
• Greater Engagement;
• Low-cost public relations;
• Attracting more potential employees in line with the corporate vision.

How does a CEO affect corporate reputation?

The mass media usually offer interviews, articles and entire programs in which the figure of those CEOs who are considered by most as innovators and thought leaders stands out.

These individuals may or may not have more to offer than their competitors, but surely they have established themselves as established business leaders , which they have achieved through a carefully managed personal branding campaign.

The moment a company's CEO is perceived as an astute, intelligent, and innovative leader by the media or the general public, he becomes more valuable to the company.

This is a real win-win scenario , as the CEO who knows how to manage his brand equity in turn increases the company's brand equity; this is because the person and personality of the CEO have an impact on his image and reputation, which are directly related to the company's reputation.

In fact, we recall that the term " brand equity " refers to the added value that a product receives from the brand's high level of notoriety.

The 4 Ps of the CEO Branding Mix

Over the years, four main elements of CEO Branding that influence the financial and non-financial aspects of companies have been identified and then grouped in the book “ CEO Branding: Theory and Practice ” by Marc Fetscherin.

These four elements have taken the name of " 4 Ps of the CEO Branding Mix " and specifically they are:

• prestige
• personality
• Person
• Performance

Let's analyze them in detail!

CEO Prestige (Prestige)

The first “P” we talk about is Prestige . This variable can easily be defined as the reputation of the CEO .

It may happen that a CEO even manages to obtain such a high level of prestige that his figure can be referred to as a " Celebrity CEO ", i.e. a CEO who, at the same time, is also a celebrity.

CEO Personality

The second "P" refers to the Personality of the CEO, a personality that can encompass both positive and negative aspects of the person.

Remember when we talked about the good and bad CEO earlier? Here, in the CEO Personality we find all those characteristics that can make a CEO loved or hated.

Honesty, humility, charisma, modesty or arrogance, self-centeredness, narcissism… are all parameters of a CEO that form his personality and the way he is perceived by most.

CEO Person

With the term Person this third "P" means all the variables that characterize the CEO in a more general way.

We find in the characteristics of the Person connotations such as:

• Physical characteristics
• Sex
• Age
• Education
• social status
• Appearance
• Facial expressions
• Social background

All these characteristics implicitly affect the way in which the stakeholders (individual or group that has an interest in any decision or activity of an organization) perceive the CEO and give credit to what he says and how he says it.

CEO Performance

This last "P" refers to the Performance of the CEO. More simply it means all the results achieved by the company during the period in which the CEO is active.

There are many parameters that are used, tangible and not. The tangible parameters can be enclosed in:

• Profits
• ROI
• Market share

The intangible parameters are:

• Business organization
• Planning
• Engagement
• Management of suppliers, employees and shareholders

However, it should be emphasized that this "P" can be partially managed because there are external and uncontrollable factors that can affect performance , for example competition in the environment or the global economy.

CEO Branding and Reputation Economy

Visibility creates opportunities and reputation creates trust.

Consumer choices are dictated, more often than not, by the testimonies of other people and by word of mouth. More simply, people who influence other people.

Thanks to the advent of the internet, this phenomenon has become increasingly widespread and is called the Reputation Economy . In fact, the web has become the first vehicle for building the reputation of a brand, of a product that I choose or not to buy.

What is the Reputation Economy?

The World Economic Forum has stated that 25% of a company's market value comes from its reputation.

How many times have we been influenced by reviews on TripAdvisor to choose the restaurant where to go out for dinner? Or from Amazon reviews when we want to buy a product. Or again, how many times have you searched for a person's name to understand if you really could trust him and buy that famous course to become an influencer in 100 days?

Positive interactions with a brand translate into new opportunities for it while negative ones will publicly diminish its reputation.

This is the Reputation Economy, or the economy that revolves around reputation. We're living it right now, right now: it's the 21st century economy . A reputation that is based on perception, the same perception that is given by the speeches found online about a brand.

How is the Reputation Economy Connected with CEO Branding?

It goes without saying that the more well spoken of a CEO, the more there will be opportunities for users to take advantage of his products or services . The more we value the way a CEO behaves in public or with his employees, the more we will be inclined to buy something from him because, most likely, he is indirectly reflecting our values and what we like about a person.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and only five minutes to ruin it”

Warren Buffett

Famous CEOs and Brand Reputation: some examples

Over the last few years we have witnessed a series of typical situations that clearly reflect the importance of the CEO and his behavior in relation to the success of the brand they represent.

Let's see together, therefore, a small roundup of examples in this sense.

Steve Jobs

We all know Steve Jobs and his fame as founder and CEO of Apple, but not all of us know what happened on the stock market in 2011 when he resigned as CEO, handing the ball to Tim Cook.

The fear of consumers relating to the fact that Apple would never be the same without its founder at the head meant that the announcement, even if it arrived at the closing of the Stock Exchanges, gave a jolt to Apple's shares which registered, in that juncture, a negative inflection of about 5% .

Vishal Garg, chief executive officer of Better.com

Another case that has caused quite a stir in the international press is that of the CEO of Better.com, Vishal Garg, who fired 900 people (about 9% of the group's entire workforce).

The dismissal caused a stir due to the way in which it was communicated to employees or through a pre-recorded message sent via ZOOM . Garg was glacial: "If you're on this call," he said, "it means you're part of the unfortunate group of people fired."

Garg later apologized and admitted the mistake, but this did not prevent drastic consequences for the company : some executives in fact decided to leave the company. These include Melanie Hahn, head of marketing, Tanya Hayre Gillogley, head of public relations and Patrick Lenihan, vice president of marketing.

Elisabetta Franchi

More recently, the statements of Elisabetta Franchi, sole director of the "Betty Blue" fashion house during her speech at an event organized by Il Foglio have caused a real social storm.

The entrepreneur, wrong-footing her audience, stated that she prefers hiring women over the age of forty , as at that age it is assumed that they have already fulfilled all the "institutional" functions (marriage, motherhood, divorce) .

Obviously the web was bitterly resentful of these statements , then promptly denied in substance by the author herself, who, however, believed that her words had been misrepresented.

It is true that the saying according to which “…for better or for worse, as long as we talk about it” hit the spot again this time; in fact, a job advertisement published by the same company on Linkedin - with which the company is looking for a communications manager - received almost 700 applications in 24 hours, in defiance of what happened a few weeks earlier.

CEO Branding: great power, great responsibility

In conclusion, we can say that CEO branding is, today more than ever, an essential tool in communication and marketing strategies ; therefore, it would be desirable for anyone who is in a position to represent a company or a corporate group to treasure and assimilate these notions, in order to adequately reflect the product or service to be sold.

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