Does your brand have the soul to succeed?

In this era of generative AI and the rapidly evolving world of marketing, marketing leaders face the challenge of creating brands that drive business growth and resonate deeply with human experiences. The journey, however, is rarely straightforward.

Marketing leaders and CMOs often find themselves in a constant balancing act—delivering immediate impact while nurturing long-term brand equity. Having navigated these waters for the past few years, I intimately understand these challenges.

Building soulful brands emerges as a compelling north star in this landscape—while not a panacea, it anchors decision-making in the brand's authentic DNA and values, offering a more straightforward path through the maze of modern marketing demands.

The business case for soulful brands

Recent studies among Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 companies reveal a paradigm shift in how value is created: Intangible assets now dominate market valuations, eclipsing traditional physical and financial assets.

These intangibles—spanning from intellectual property and customer relationships to organisational culture, data assets, and digital capabilities—are increasingly the decisive factors in driving both shareholder value and competitive advantage.

Among this constellation of intangible assets, brand emerges as a uniquely powerful force. Warren Buffett's investment philosophy captures this eloquently: He prioritises companies with strong pricing power—the ability to raise prices while maintaining customer loyalty and market share.

In my experience, it is precisely this pricing power that emanates naturally from brands built with soul, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of value creation.

A soulful brand: Not manufactured but cultivated

What makes a truly remarkable brand goes far beyond product features or market share. It lives in the intangible heart of a business—like a unique personality that you can't quite put your finger on, but you know it when you experience it. You can feel it, sense it, and connect with it in ways that numbers can't capture. This special quality can't be manufactured or packaged—it needs to be nurtured and protected over time.

A brand with soul is built on five fundamental pillars:

• Meaningful purpose: A mission that extends beyond profit.
• Authentic connection: Genuine resonance with people's lives.
• Stay relevant with times: Keeps reinventing to stay relevant to people.
• Consistent identity: A unified narrative and visual identity across all interactions.
• Starts from within: It is a summation of the employee's passion, love and the responsibility to simply do the right thing to impact humanity.

In my book, Building Brands with Soul: A CMO's Journey to Humanising Growth and Creating Lasting Impact, I explore how businesses and brands with soul emanate from the collective heart and spirit of their people. Such brands are forged through years of unwavering commitment to core values, shaped by the authentic stories of employees navigating their personal growth, team leadership, and business impact. They represent the culmination of countless individual journeys united in purpose.

So, what are some great brands with soul? There are many great brands with soul, below is a select list of the ones I've worked with or admire:

Dove: Redefining beauty

More than a personal care brand, Dove revolutionised conversations about self-esteem through its “real beauty” campaign. By challenging traditional beauty standards, the brand empowers women and creates social impact.

HP Gaming: A leadership transformation

A great example of my own leadership journey recently is my work transforming HP’s gaming brand. In just 18 months, the brand went from ninth to first place in the market. This was not achieved through traditional marketing, rather through instilling a shared vision across the organisation that Omen Gaming can empower gamers to progress in gaming with HP’s ecosystem of products, solutions and community experiences.

First Direct: Holistic financial wellness

The financial service provider goes beyond transactions, actively supporting customer’s mental well-being. The brand recognises that banking is not just about money, but about a human financial journey.

Johnnie Walker: Inspiring progress

The brand’s iconic “Keep Walking” philosophy is not merely a marketing slogan. It is a narrative of progress, embedded into every aspect of its visual identity and on every aspect of the social impact that the brand tries to create.

The leadership ripple effects

In this era of turbulence and generative AI, leading and building businesses and brands with soul has become more crucial than ever. This philosophy transcends traditional boundaries—resonating not only with multinational corporations but also with SMEs, extending beyond marketing to touch entrepreneurs, students, and board directors alike.

'Building brands with soul' offers a blueprint that empowers marketing leaders to spark meaningful dialogue around brand narratives, catalysing organisational transformation for multi-stakeholder impact. Marketing leaders who embrace this philosophy of understanding and meeting human needs can transform not only their organisations but entire industry landscapes.

The journey begins with personal purpose and flows through organisational culture, creating brands that go beyond mere transactional relationships. When leaders align their personal mission with corporate vision, they forge a powerful north star that guides and inspires.

This journey must start with self-mastery, namely:

• Deep understanding of one's personal purpose
• Recognising individual strengths and potential limitations
• Developing a vision that inspires and motivates teams
• Not being afraid to stay curious and to keep learning and reinventing.

I like to frame this leadership philosophy as creating a 'ripple effect', where personal alignment generates exponential organisational impact.

The journey of building brands with soul is exhilarating—challenging, yet profoundly fulfilling when executed well. To me, it stands as a manifesto for meaningful business leadership.

By harmonising data-driven insights with human-centric creativity, we can build brands that are not only commercially successful but genuinely impactful. It represents the culmination of countless 'ripples' created through marketing leadership, cascading outward to touch lives and transform businesses.

Siew Ting Foo has worked in brand building and marketing for 25 years, holding leadership positions at companies including Unilever, Mars Inc., Diageo, Fonterra, and HP Inc. Her work focused on developing human-centric growth strategies, and she launched her book, Building Brands with Soul: A CMO's Journey to Humanising Growth and Creating Lasting Impact in 2024. She has been recognised by Campaign Asia as an influential CMO annually from 2018 to 2024 in its APAC CMO Power List.