The case for treating brand like a business asset, not a marketing cost
For many industrial and manufacturing companies, brand still sits in the wrong category.
It is treated as a marketing expense. A visual system. A logo. A campaign wrapper. Something important, but hard to defend when budgets tighten or capital needs to flow toward operations, supply chain, equipment, or product development.
That mindset leaves value on the table.
In a recent Matchstic webinar, Matchstic's Tracy Clark, Director of Brand Strategy and Jay Holden, VP of Operations sat down with Laurence Newell, Executive Chairman of the Americas for Brand Finance, to discuss a simple shift: brand should not be managed as a soft cost center. It should be managed as a business asset.
As Laurence put it, “At the end of the day, brands are businesses and should be treated as business.”
The language gap between marketing and finance
One of the biggest barriers for manufacturing marketers is not a lack of belief in brand. It is a lack of shared language with the people who control investment.
Marketing often talks in terms of awareness, preference, engagement, and identity. Those measures matter, but they do not always translate clearly to the CFO, CEO, or board.
“The language of business, at the end of the day, is finance,” Laurence said. “The language of CFOs is not spoken in likes or followers. It is spoken in terms such as cash flow, risk and return, and asset value.”
That does not mean brand leaders should abandon brand metrics. It means they need to connect those metrics to financial outcomes: demand, pricing resilience, trust, revenue quality, and future earnings.
For manufacturers with long sales cycles, complex buying committees, and high-stakes purchase decisions, that connection matters.
Brand reduces risk in complex buying decisions
A common misconception is that brand matters less in manufacturing because the buying process is rational. Buyers care about specifications, performance, service levels, pricing, and reliability.
They do. But those factors do not eliminate the role of brand. They make it more important.
Manufacturing purchases are expensive, operationally complex, and personally risky for the decision maker. Buyers are not just choosing a product. They are choosing a partner they are willing to trust with their reputation.
As Laurence explained, “At the end of the day, is this a brand I trust? Is this a brand that I’m willing to hang my reputation and credibility on?”
That is why brand strength is not cosmetic. It is a risk-reduction mechanism.
Jay Holden connected the point to his own experience as a former global marketing leader for a manufacturing company: “If you’re in manufacturing, you know this. It is a slugfest to get dollars and to get everybody on board with brand and marketing.”
That is the operational reality. Brand leaders in manufacturing often get one serious chance to make the case. The stronger that case is tied to risk, revenue, and value creation, the stronger it becomes.
Sameness creates financial drag
Many manufacturing brands look and sound alike. They use similar claims, similar visual systems, similar sales language, and similar proof points. The result is a category full of capable but interchangeable companies.
That creates a business problem.
“When everyone is saying the same thing, everyone is pricing at parity, and everyone is distributing through the same channels, then it is just more of the same,” Laurence said. “More of the same really does not drive value. It lets products and services become commodities.”
Sameness pushes companies toward price competition. Distinction gives companies a better chance to turn operational strengths into preference and pricing power.
The missed opportunity is not just better marketing. It is stronger commercial performance.
Measurement changes the internal conversation
Brand valuation gives leaders a way to move the conversation from opinion to evidence.
Laurence described two related disciplines: brand evaluation, which assesses the competitive strength of the brand, and brand valuation, which calculates what the brand is worth in financial terms.
That lens allows leaders to ask better questions:
- How strong is our brand relative to competitors?
- Where is brand helping or limiting commercial performance?
- How much pricing resilience does our brand create?
- What value could be created if we strengthened the brand over the next two to three years?
- What financial risk do we create if we merge, sunset, or retain a brand after an acquisition?
This is a different posture from “Did people like the rebrand?”
A stronger question is: What was true before the rebrand, what changed after launch, and how did that change show up in business performance over time?
As Laurence said, “This is where we were before we rebranded. This is the day we unveiled the rebrand. And this is what success looks like over the next two to three years, yes, in marketing metrics, but more importantly, in financial outcomes.”
That kind of thinking gives marketing a stronger seat at the table. It also gives finance a more rigorous way to evaluate brand investment.
The takeaway
- Brand should be managed as a business asset, not only as a marketing expense.
- Strong brands reduce risk in complex buying decisions by making buyers more confident in the company behind the product.
- Sameness creates financial drag by pushing manufacturers toward parity, price pressure, and commoditization.
- Brand metrics matter more when they connect to financial outcomes such as demand, pricing resilience, trust, growth, and future earnings.
- Manufacturing CMOs and growth leaders need to speak the language of finance, establish a baseline, and show how brand strength contributes to business performance.
Time to take action
- Learn more about Brand Valuation.
- Brush-up on financial terms.
- Develop your point-of-view on "brand as an asset". Is your brand ready?
- Explore a brand process geared toward increasing the value of your brand.
- Ask the question: Is our brand an intangible asset on the balance sheet?
- Watch the Webinar on this topic.