The Boston Consulting Group's Antonella Mei-Pochtler, a senior consultant with a focus on branding, media and consumer goods, says there are nearly limitless possibilities for a brand if you invest in building it the right way.
"Most people see branding as a way to communicate with consumers, but it can be so much more if you get the management of the brand right," Mei-Pochtler says. "Brand should be deeply linked into strategy, and a brand is most effective when it's making a company's strategy more visible and relevant to customers."
Today, Mei-Pochtler spends a lot of time giving similar advice to C-level executives at companies in the luxury goods, retail, automotive and media industries. One of the biggest challenges clients are dealing with these days, she says, is how a brand strategy fits into the new media world, one in which consumers actively engage with companies and their products. "It is such a dramatic switch; it's a tsunami compared to what it was ten years ago because of the Internet and the social aspects of Web. 2.0," she says. "It requires much more complex management to create impactful brands. My main work right now is around making sure the billions of dollars of investments companies put against the creation and the management of brands is being used in the most meaningful and most impactful ways."
