Never Tie Your Ego to the Brand That You Manage

“Branding” is like falling in love. Once you seriously get involved with a brand, it is very hard to think of separating yourself from the brand that you manage. When someone makes a negative comment about your brand, you overreact by taking it too emotional. One of my friends who recently resigned from their job told me “It’s so hard to believe I’m leaving this brand after working with it for this many years. I’m still going to love it”.

From the surface look of it, one might feel it is a good thing for a brand manager to fall in love with the brand they manage. When you get emotionally close to the brand, you will do your best to make the brand the number on in the industry.

Or is it really?

In my opinion, tying your ego with the brand you manage is bad. It’s bad both for your ego and for your brand. It is bad for your ego because no brand is guaranteed to remain “un-attacked” from a hostile competitor or turbulent market conditions. If your ego is tied to your brand; then every time when the brand gets attacked, your ego too is going to get hurt. On the other hand; if you see your brand as a part of your ego, then the business decisions you make on the brand becomes “ego defending decisions” in practical terms.

Attaching your personal "ego" to the business decisions you make, can in turn make it difficult for you to recover when you make a bad business decision. You will feel that your ego is being threatened, when you are forced to admit the hard truth that you made a bad business decision. If you can leave your ego out of the equation; it makes much easier for you to put your hands up and say “I screwed it! Let me try a different trick this time”. But, as long as you keep your ego tied to the (bad) decision you made; you will continue to fight for defending your decision. In real terms, what you are actually defending is your own ego. Not your decisions or the brand.


This is why it is so important for us to separate the brand specific business decisions from the people who make those decisions. Depersonalizing the decision making process is crucial, not just at branding level, but also at all decisions a business organization is making. As soon as you separate the decision makers from the decisions they make; people will start to look at things more objectively when things go wrong.

If you truly love your brand, never fall too deep in love with it. Keep the distance!

“All great marriages involves a powerful emotion; passion. So do all great brand relationships”. But remember this quote holds true only for passion and emotion in the relationship between brand and the customers. Your love to the brand should be like the love of a parent. You are not supposed to romanticize with your brand. Your job is to making an adorable brand, for your customers to fall in love. For your customers to romanticize with!


[Originally posted on www.amisampath.com]