Friday, October 7, 2011

When BOSS Becomes The BRAND !


A brand for the company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” - Jeff Bezos

“It is a huge problem when boss becomes the brand” says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld a professor at the Yale school of management “The upside is it gives the brand human terms .The downside is that none of us are immortal. These branded bosses often start to believe in their own immortality”

When Jobs announce his retirement he said “I have always said if there ever a day came when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apples CEO. I would be the first to let you know, unfortunately that day has come”.

This clearly shows Steve Jobs absolutely doesn’t fit in this category anywhere.


It is truly an American story in every sense the way he started his company at early stage with less capital; build it in to one of the biggest(Apple hold more cash than the US Government) ;send out of his own company; came back with great will and rock the world with his “i” series.

Headlines of all the newspapers and comments by celebrities’, politicians, CEO shows how great was his impact and association of his image in peoples mind all over the world.

Steve jobs one of the rare example where company successfully attempts to co relate the person and his philosophy with the brand image of company and its products.


Branding can be defined as use of name, term, symbol, design or combinations of all or any of these to clearly identify a product/business and thereby differentiate it in the market.

Narayana Murthy of Infosys, Bill Gates of Microsoft also proves their capabilities and matches their skills with the brand they provide with life teaching philosophy.

Successful branding creates an emotional attachment of a product in consumers mind and gives it sustainable and competitive advantage with the rivals.

Apples growing revenues shows how they have created real and satisfying relationship with their customers and continuous innovations and freshness in their product with powerful marketing adds value in their efforts.