by Nkemdilim Uwaje Begho

As 2023 approaches, Board Members, executives and founders like you are usually busy with strategizing and planning for the new year…and one area that needs close attention is your organisation’s brand. Bella Ikeme and I recently hosted a Masterclass titled How to Build Brands for High Performance and Sustainability — which focused on strategic brand building, common brand challenges and how to get your brand ready for 2023.

This blog post focuses on common brand challenges and ways to mitigate and solve them. But before we jump right in — here is the Masterclass replay in case you missed the session. So let’s get started by talking through the most common brand challenges:

Let’s first talk about why your brand challenges need close attention — your brand is pretty much the fabric of your organisation it spans across your Brand Values, your Brand voice and tone, your Visual Brand Identity, your Brand Perception, your Brand Story, Narrative, Messaging Pillars, your Stakeholders (Internal, External, Partnerships), your Culture, ESG, DEI, Customer Experience (CX) & Product Touchpoints and the entire Customer Journey, Technology aspects such as Personalisation, Automation, Platforms etc and last, but not least Data & Reporting.

This means that if you are facing any challenges with your brand everything else in your business suffers: your marketing, your sales, your culture, your ability to attract more of the right, loyal customers, partners, investors or even employees — the list is endless.

Not identifying and solving your brand challenges can lead to compromising your values, lack of innovation and a poor customer experience and in turn loss of market share and revenue….

I think you now understand why you should keep reading and why you should care about this topic.

In general you can mitigate/solve your biggest brand challenges by:

Being clear on your Purpose, Mission, Vision and Values and let them guide your brand
Having a brand strategy in place and continuously evolve this brand strategy
Having a proper governance framework in place
Carrying all internal stakeholders along to ensure everyone is on the same page
Building a solid foundation before you grow & scale
Being open to rapid prototyping and brand sprints to test concepts
Co-creating with your stakeholders (customers, partners, employees, competitors)
Upskilling your team / board / management
Using your data and the insights you can derive from it
Understanding success metrics and track them real time with board oversight
Tracking your Reputation & Social Listening
Listening to your customers & build for and with your customer
Doing what you say and stand for — don’t sugar coat things — don’t create the wrong impression
Focusing on an inclusive and diverse workplace that fosters equity and positive culture

Let’s explore the most common brand challenges

If you can’t answer all of the questions above with clear and concise answers, then you definitely need to keep reading and join me as I explore the most common brand challenges.I’ve tried to categorise them, but remember you may have one or multiple brand challenges to tackle.

1. Strategy

Lack of a defined brand strategy
A Brand Strategy that does not align with organisational goals
Due to lack of collaboration the execution of a brand strategy is not cohesive

2. Governance, Structure, Commitment & Collaboration

Lack of board oversight
Lack of collaboration and teamwork within various units across the organisation
Lack of ownership and reporting structures

3. Brand:

No Brand / Weak Brand / Visual only brand / Incomplete brand positioning / Inconsistent brand and messaging
ESG & DEI as checkboxes that exist outside of the brand — lack of understanding on how to achieve a seamless integration
Lack of governance structures → losing hold of your brand identity → the brand is all over the place
The brand seems outdated and lacklustre due to current focus not being represented in the current branding or simply a lack of creativity and innovation

4. CX

Poor customer experience → lack of data & insights, lack of focus groups, lack of customer engagement, lack of focus on reducing friction → customer not at the centre of the design
Creating products without a brand foundation

5. Data / Reporting

Focus on the wrong (marketing) metrics and business drivers
Not tracking success of campaigns, products etc.

6. Reputation

Reputational Damage
Greenwashing / Bluewashing
High Attrition rates — insufficient brand positioning to attract and retain talent

7. Technology

Frictionless MarTech Stack → Interoperability
MarTech Stack Dependencies that don’t allow easy migration of systems and/or data

8. Budget

Lack of a defined marketing budget due to not prioritising brand strategy
Inadequate budget allocated to brand strategy and implementation
A decent budget allocated to the wrong things → poor ROI

If you are not sure which of the above brand challenges you are grappling with or you seem to have issues with almost all of them, here are some things that can help:

Periodic Strategy Reviews and Brand Audits
Scenario Planning and Risk Analysis
Analyse Volume and type of customer support complaints
Public brand sentiment / Social Listening
Analytics across all customer touch points
Consumer behaviour — cross generational patterns
Competitor & market analysis
As a board ask the right questions and ensure you have access to the right information
Review the metrics you are currently tracking and ask yourself if they are the right ones
Ask your stakeholders / Listen to your stakeholders

As a board member or executive you should be asking yourself:

Have we audited our brand?
Do we have a brand strategy?
Is our brand strategy part of our organisational fabric / DNA?
Do we know what our brand’s biggest challenges are and how to solve them?
Do we have clarity on our stakeholders, integrating ESG or DEI into our brand strategy and optimising our overall customer experience?
How are we using data, what can we automate and how do humanise our brand and communications?
Does our branding team, marketing team, board and management have the right skills and knowledge?

So I ask again — how will your brand evolve?

Reach out to me or my team if you need professional help with any of the above, we can help you with audits, strategies, brand sprints, reporting, establishing a baseline as well as developing your brand strategy and solutions that can help solve your biggest brand challenge(s)).

We are offering free 30-minute consultations

If you are interested, please click here to book. We have limited spaces available, so it’s a first come first serve basis. You can also email us at info@futuresoft-ng.com if you’d like to book a training session for your board or your team or have any specific questions regarding our services.

I look forward to hearing from you and wish you an amazing holiday season and a successful brand in 2023!

Nkemdilim Uwaje Begho is a seasoned Information Technology professional with over 15 years of industry experience in Africa’s largest emerging economy with a deep purpose and focus on bridging the digital divide and transforming Africa by harnessing the benefits of digital. At home in technology from childhood, Nkemdilim is walking in her fathers’ footsteps as a second-generation Nigerian Information Technology expert. Currently CEO of Future Software Resources Ltd. (Futuresoft), one of Nigeria’s leading digital & technology solutions companies, providing a broad range of solutions for the scaling African enterprise, to consistently attract and retain its target audience, optimize its processes and increase its bottom line.

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