I admit it; I’m a sports junkie. And, this is usually one of my favorite times of the year — the first few weeks of the NFL season. But this year, it’s been more about how poorly the NFL is managing what happens off the field than it is the excitement of what’s happening on the field of play.

Somehow the NFL has forgotten what its carefully built brand stands for. It's forgotten that every experience fans have with its brand — including players’ behavior — makes a difference. And it's lost touch with what matters to its customer base. 

With a serious case of misjudgment, the NFL missed the opportunity to have its brand set an example and agenda for the rest of the country to follow with a no-tolerance stand on domestic violence. Instead, the deplorable way it's handled the Ray Rice domestic violence incident as well as others that have since come to light has damaged the carefully crafted NFL brand image, reputation, and ultimately overall success of its $6 billion business. So what can CMOs learn from the NFL experience to avoid missteps and instead build a strong and resilient brand?

Read my new report “How To Build A Strong B2B Brand” (subscription required) to help you avoid the pitfalls the NFL fell into. Expanding on Tracy Stokes' work in our brand experience playbook, my new report applies Tracy’s work to the unique challenges B2B marketers face in building, growing, and managing customer-centric brand experiences. 

Read my report and learn how to:

  • Build your brand experiences to engage with today’s empowered buyers. As business buyers gain control over their purchase process, B2B organizations must depend on strong brand experiences to gain a coveted place in the buyers’ consideration set. When managed well, a strong B2B brand benefits the health of the entire company and serves as a bridge between your company and your customers.
  • Define your brand value in customer terms. Your brand must be anchored on customer needs and be delivered consistently across all experiences the customer has with your company. You must link together all marketing deliverables and activities to build a stronger customer relationship with each successive touchpoint in ways that are easily visible to customers.
  • Tell your brand story in a compelling way. Make your brand unmistakable in the conversation by focusing your story on what your customers care about, want to buy into, participate in, and will share with peers and social media connections. And stay true to that brand story building customer trust.
  • Create differentiating brand experiences. Competitive differentiation should be conceived across every point in the buying journey to create a sense of uniqueness that separates your brand from the pack. Use your brand experiences to spur rational and emotional preference, relevance, and consideration throughout the buyer’s journey

In today’s customer-empowered world, building strong brand experiences can mean the difference between adeptly navigating the post-digital terrain or losing out to the competition.

Do you treat your brand as a strategic asset? What are you doing to anchor and build your brand experiences? I’d love to hear your comments and perspectives. You can reach out to me via email or on my blog or share your thoughts at my Twitter account. Or to learn more, you can schedule an inquiry with me.