Taking A Stand For Your Brand

If you’ve ever been on a packaged goods account like I have…coming up through the ranks you’ll have to deal with a level of client staff that has the title: Brand Manager—a misnomer at best. The Brand Manager in companies like Nabisco, Kraft or Coca-Cola may have that title, but in reality, they can’t call the real shots. Some just aren’t capable of making the big calls that help build or preserve the long-term equity of the brand they are assigned to.

After all, many of these freshly minted MBA’s are on their brand for a “lifetime” of two years…in which time they have to prove themselves in some way or they don’t get their bonuses or promoted upward. A more accurate title may actually be Business Manager.

For me, the real, or as I’ve long referred to them as, the Ultimate Brand Manager, in any well run company, is the CEO. Whether that is a large conglomerate or a small business, nothing is really going to happen nor will any substantive brand cultural change occur without their support and most importantly, their leadership. With them ride the big decisions. The really great ones understand the value and equity their brands hold. And this equity is sometimes an intangible that their brand manager doesn’t get.


Last week, the Ultimate Brand Manager for one of my favorite brands—The National Football League—(yes, it IS a brand!), showed his true mettle and earned my admiration as a fan and as a Certified Brand Strategist. That Ultimate Brand Manager is Roger Goodell.

After Paul Tagliabue gave up the reins as Commissioner—and having succeeded a legend, Pete Rozelle, who shaped the league into what it is today, I wondered what mark Mr. Goodell could possibly make. Well, he made a very loud brand statement last week and proved he gets it—he understands where the brand value in the NFL really is.


You see, last week, Roger Goodell announced that two players of very high visibility and notoriety—Plaxico Burress of the NY Giants and Michael Vick formerly of the Atlanta Falcons—each who recently garnered a more notorious rep, would not be considered for re-admission to the NFL this season. What? But they’re stars! They’re Franchise Players! Michael Vick was the face of the Atlanta Falcons?! Doesn’t he know that the players are the game…that they are the NFL?

The average garden-variety fan and the players/NFL Players Union believe the players ARE the game, the franchise, the raison d’être, the equity. But thankfully, Goodell knows better. The players? Ha! NO…it’s in the game itself and the reputation they’ve worked so hard to infuse into the equity that Roselle and Tagliabue handed down for him to manage on his own…and wow has he.


Michael Vick was a great quarterback—but he financed an underground ring of illegal dog fights. Plaxico Burress-- who helped lead the Giants to the Superbowl in 2008, shot himself with his own gun: an unlicensed, concealed weapons charge and he wasn’t out hunting…unless that’s what clubbing in New York has turned out to be. And now Goodell has Dante Stallworth to contend with…Stallworth may be an upstanding guy, be he’s killed some poor unfortunate soul while driving drunk.


So what’s the branding lesson here today, one that Goodell so ably applied?

By taking the stand that he did, he’s effectively told every player in the league…no matter who you are, you are NOT bigger than this game or this brand…at least not on his watch. And this wasn’t the first time he’s shown this discipline. Last year, it was Pac Man Jones and then T.O. Good for you, Goodell!


So let’s hear it for a very unlikely, but new personal branding hero: The Ultimate Brand Manager that is so wisely managing the inheritance, the game and the brand from Coaches like Lombardi, Landry, and upstanding players like Staubach and even “Mean” Joe Green. They can all hold up their heads a little higher today, no matter where they are.