When you stop to think about it, asking the marketing team to lead brand or rebranding efforts is the kind of decision that probably results in the kind of high-visibility failures we marketers love to trail-rattle about.
This was the setup of my first column for Inc.com (view all of my columns here): Rebranding is sophisticated leadership work, and we rarely if ever give the marketing teams charged with executing it any leadership training.
But imagine if we did. As I wrote:
Imagine a branding effort led by a team versed in John Kotter’s principles of change leadership. A team that understands the importance of and knows how to instill a sense of urgency for the rebrand; builds the proper internal coalition to advocate for it; creates a compelling vision for the future state of the new brand; enables others to act by removing barriers (as opposed to imposing talking points); and seeks to highlight early and small wins to build momentum.
That’s the kind of acumen Three Over Four brings to the table. And the kind of intersection between leadership and marketing I’m captivated by.