A brand executive is the marketing expert that decides what direction a brand takes. A brand executive or brand manager is responsible for the overall perceptions and reception of the brand. They head up brand campaigns to entice the consumer, organize events to spread brand awareness, and follow up on market trends to boost overall marketing efficiency. 

Brand personnel, in general, develop market strategies and gauge consumer interest through concepts such as market surveys and sales. All this to achieve company objectives. Corporate branding is highly dependent on how the company creates its broad-based marketing strategy. In case you’re wondering, yes the brand executives do belong to the marketing department of a company. So are brand executives different from marketing executives? The answer is a loud Yes. 

Key Differences

Although marketers have a vital job too, they and brand managers are apples and oranges as far as the practice is concerned. A brand executive looks after the brand with awareness, perception, and recall; whereas marketing executives cater to the needs of the entire company and the company’s portfolio. The clients receiving a full fledged service for promotional events like discounts, bargain deals, and events are all done under the umbrella of the marketing department. The main thing to remember here is that a lot of the time these ideas and plans come from the branding side that the marketing executives piggyback on. 

By contrast, a brand executive stands out from a marketing executive. For example, when the website of a company’s official page has to be designed, it is done with help of a brand executive and obviously with the marketing follow through to achieve the goals. Everything from the logo, color scheme, and layout has to be designed with puts the branding experts on notice, and the marketing department waits for final orders to be issued to start campaigning for the website. The same goes for a mobile app. 

Nevertheless, when it comes to rebranding, revamping, or relaunching something it is the sole responsibility of the branding side and not the marketing side until the branding side is ready to roll out the campaign to the rest of the company. This is when the marketing side takes a point on the project. This corporate branding process is fairly simple but neither side truly detaches for the other whether it be during a project or in otherwise day-to-day operations.

Marketing Day to Day

You could say that marketing is a misnomer when we usually, as leman, refer to the marketing of a product or brand. What he means is the branding. For example, all the Red Bull ads that we have been bombarded with over the years have been a branding campaign executed by the marketing executives of Red Bull. The same brand strategy has been maintained by the marketing department at Red Bull years after it’s been set by the brand executives. 

Brand Management and Marketing 

Brand management uses marketing techniques to enhance brand or product perception. Keeping to the strategic plan that has been devised to maintain brand value and equity. This requires immense market research and analysis from the branding team to go through on the road to fully dissecting the target market. Whatever the next steps may be, the brand managers would take into account the overall vision of the brand or company.

They’ll have to go for a specific brand identity design company wide to market it consistently throughout all available media. For emphasis, the type of branding we see in the Red Bull television ads is along the same lines as the product packaging and print or online ads we see on other media. That is by design. This can only be done when branding and marketing are in lockstep, in promoting the brand and product at the same time. The product here is the drink but the brand includes everything included in the ads – the visuals, sound, and the narrative.

Final Thoughts

You can say that marketing is the act of connecting with your consumer daily to keep up the presence and credibility of the company, product, and brand – so they keep using your product or service. However, branding is the campaign of the brand, company, and product or service. It provides the blanket definition of the company for the consumer and shapes or reshapes consumer perception of it through taking advantage of consumer psychology, market research and trends, and sales numbers.

All in all, while branding can temporarily stop, marketing can not. The outgoing message from a business has to keep reaching the consumer as regularly as possible. The death of all comes at the hand of indifference.

Also Read: Marketing – The Old and The New