All companies aspire to build brands that eventually get etched in the culture of the society and become cultural icons. But very few companies are able to achieve this iconic status. Contrary to popular perception, iconicity does not happen by chance, but rather has to be carefully planned and executed.

Branding enhances shareholder value, it can become a catalyst for better leadership, it enables to drive a shared vision throughout the organization, and it can help to balance short- and long-term perspectives and performance. But what makes an iconic brand?

A look at some of the most iconic brands in history such as Coca-Cola, Harley Davidson, Chanel, IBM, Giorgio Armani, L'Oreal, Louis Vuitton, Apple, Amanresorts and Singapore Airlines reveals some very common characteristics.

First of all, they have all been running profitable and very well-driven operations. Secondly, they used differentiation to build and defend solid market positions. Constant innovation was part of this and an integrated component of their company culture. But a third dimension, a strong emotional connection, made a huge impact. They have all been able to build and sustain very strong emotional bonds with their customer and stakeholders. A combination of these aspects will enable a brand to become iconic.

All of above brands fulfilled three important requirements of being an iconic:

Create an identity myth: For any brand to attain iconic status, it has to create an identity myth. Every society invariably goes through phases of prosperity and crisis. Brands that resonate and shows directions to the masses through the brand stories and brand activities gets etched into the culture. These brands, by creating an identity for themselves, provide identity to the whole society.

Psychological research demonstrates that brands are durable because people are cognitive misers. The modern society is overloaded with information, and the average person receives far more information than one can possibly digest properly. Therefore, people seek to simplify the world by relying on a variety of heuristics to minimize the amount of searching and information processing needed to make reasonable decisions. Once people believe a brand works for a certain purpose or reason, they are less likely to seek out new information that challenges the assumptions.

Sociological research also demonstrates why people are less likely to switch brands. Multiple elements like images, stories and associations are attached to a brand. As these elements are shared collectively by groups and networks of people, they form generally accepted conventions about brands. It is therefore relatively difficult for individuals to switch brands and thereby abandon these shared conventions.

The identity myth is therefore critical for brands, as they serve as a guiding aspect of past, present and future.

Involve multiple story tellers: Dissemination of brand information through the many participants of the society is critical for an iconic brand. The four major authors of these brand stories are: companies, the culture industries, intermediaries and customers. Each of these authors facilitates the brand to blend into the fabric of the society. By associating the brand and its identity with the prevalent events in the society, these authors create an iconic stature for the brands.

Weave powerful brand stories: Great brands always have resonating stories that touch the lives of consumers. These stories could be of the brand's unique history (Shanghai), myth (Jim Thompson), culture (Harley Davidson), fashion icon (Giorgio Armani), performance (Nike), and underlying service philosophy (Singapore Airlines). These brand stories offers consumers a good reason to elevate the brand beyond their mere utilitarian role in the market.

One of the important results of developing an iconic brand is the growth of brand communities. Brand communities are largely imagined communities that represent a form of human association situated within a consumption context. Brand communities are collections of active loyalists, users of a brand who are committed, conscientious and almost passionate. There is an intrinsic connection between members and the collective sense of difference from others not in the community. Members of the brand community practice rituals and traditions that perpetuate the community's shared history.

Brand communities are liberated from geography, commercial in nature, possess communal self awareness and are committed that facilitates the brand to attain long term acceptability in the society and ensures that the brand attains iconic state.

By being an important resource for consumers, brand communities provide wider social benefits to consumers through interaction and provide social structure to the relationship between marketer and consumer.

In the next 10 years, a rapid changing landscape will emerge in Asia where the opportunities for Asian companies to benefit from branding efforts will be larger than ever before. The growing emphasis on better financial value creation, competitiveness and differentiation through brand equity will move up the boardroom agenda. Brand leadership will become one of the most prominent management issues in Asia Pacific.

But before this new momentum shift can take place, changes are necessary. Asian companies and their management teams need to undertake 5 important steps to unleash and reach their untapped potential.

First, mindsets and practices need to change in the Asian boardroom. A complete shift in the way Asian boardrooms think of branding is needed: from a tactical view to a long-term, strategic perspective, from fragmented marketing activities to totally aligned branding activities, from a vision of branding as the sole responsibility of marketing managers to branding as the most essential function of the firm led by the boardroom.

Second, this new perspective must be steeped into a more acute perspective on the consumer behaviour patterns. Asia is not a homogenous entity. Even more importantly, Asian countries are more and more traversed by cultural flows permeating the region: cinema, music and fashion trends that are present extend beyond national borders to capture the imagination of millions. Branding and brands do not operate in vacuum, but are closely linked to developments in society, to people and to cultures.

Korean cosmetic firm Amorepacific and its 10 different brands is a great example of how Asian firms can create and sustain brands based on their own cultures instead of just replicating already established global brands. The Korean wave has paved the way for Korean firms to expand their brands across the region.

Third, managers wanting to succeed in Asia need to abandon the idea of an oriental Asia of the past. Asian consumers are all vying for an Asian type of modernity that has nothing to do with colonial imagery.

The trick is to balance legacy and vintage with modernity and contemporary edge. Think of the growth of Hong Kong-based fashion brand Shanghai Tang, and how the firm has built a strong franchise on its modern interpretation of Chinese culture.

Fourth, to create iconic brands, Asian managers will have to become trendsetters. The perspective is that, in order to be successful, Asian brands need to capture the spirit of the region, but they also need to lead the way by creating that spirit. It is therefore important that

Asian firms spend more on innovation, design and technology to become trendsetters. They are forced to move up the R&D value chain and to develop their own Intellectual Property and trademarks.

Finally, this shift can be achieved only if everybody in the company is convinced by the power of branding and if all strategies and actions are aligned around the brand. This must be led by the Asian boardroom, its CEO and executives.

Brand equity is the new asset in Asia
Branding enhances shareholder value, it can become a catalyst for better leadership, it enables to drive a shared vision throughout the organization, and it can help to balance short- and long-term perspectives and performance.

Brands can also help to recruit and maintain better talent, and it can expand a company's market reach and growth potential. The strengths of the Samsung and LG brands have made it easier to recruit and maintain global talents.

Complacency is the enemy of strong brands. The strongest brands are focusing heavily on innovation and quality in all aspects of their operations and maintain consistency. Banyan Tree and Starbucks never advertised but used many of the other customer touch points to create strong customer experiences, so the customers became brand ambassadors for the brand and helped the brands to grow.

The business landscape is changing almost every day in every industry. Hence the corporation needs to evaluate and possibly adjust the branding strategy on a regular basis. Obviously, a brand should stay relevant, differentiated and consistent throughout time, so it is a crucial balance.

The basic parts of the branding strategy are not to be changed often as they are the basic components. The changes are rather small and involve the thousands of daily actions and interpersonal behaviors, which the corporations employ as part of the brand marketing efforts.

But make sure complacency does not take root in the organization and affects the goal setting. The strong brands are the ones which are driven forward by owners whom never get tired of raising their own bars. They become their own change agents - and brand champions for great brands.

Brands play an important role in modern society. A role which cannot be denied in scope and scale. Think of the incidents starting January 2010 around the world's largest carmaker Toyota and its handling of the recall of 8 million Prius hybrid cars. It is a perfect case in crisis management of brands and a compelling one of how not to handle it.

Toyota had become a case of perfect management, The Toyota Way, involving lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, innovation and quality beyond imagination. Several global corporations aspired to learn from the Japanese company, and mirror some of their best practices in management. Anything in Japanese management was much in demand. So what went wrong with the Toyota brand the last weeks?

Leadership in time of crisis
Innovation is a fundamental building block of iconic brands. Toyota is a great example of how an Asian company rose quickly and taught the rest of the world about best practices. Leading brands create their corporate strategies with an inherent strategic element encompassing innovation. Such innovation is not limited to bringing new products to markets, but is expanded to innovation in communication with customers and other stakeholders.

But as management professor Peter Drucker said, the only two functions of any organization are innovation and marketing. Irrespective how innovative a company is, how committed the employees are, and competent the top management is, unless the company connects with the customer, success will be elusive. The top management should constantly evaluate their strategic decision in the context of customer feedback and how the customers can help the company in co-creating value.

Many brands before Toyota have been through similar crisis cases. The mineral water brand Perrier had to recall 160 million bottles in 1990 after traces of benzene. Firestone tires had to recall 6.5 million defective tires in 2000. The mother of all cases was the painkiller brand Tylenol which had to be recalled by Johnson & Johnson after traces of cyanide. Johnson & Johnson recalled 30 million packages. But the company acted fast, regained market share fast and remains the leader today.

There are 4 important steps for management in time of crisis and how to handle the issues to help protect their brands regaining their reputation and image:

Face the stakeholders: Modern global brands and companies do not operate in isolation. Stakeholders are deeply involved with brands and bond with them during all times.

Management must step up and reach out immediately. At this early stage, few people in the company would have the big overview and may lack insights. But communicating early builds trust and open lines of dialogue – which may in most cases be very useful later.

Act fast: The sooner the management can establish a dialogue with stakeholders, the better the outcome. The company has to showcase that it moves fast, is agile and is on top of the subject matter. It will prove that the brand is still in control and has not lost confidence in itself. This early move will also allow the brand to better control the messages and help galvanizing the company support networks.

Strategic roadmap: The best global brands have ready-to-go strategic roadmaps which outlines exactly what to do and who should do it in case of crisis incidents. A strategic roadmap outlines how management and the company seek to repair the damage, re-establish operations and lead the brand's way back to normal. As management gets more details about the incident, the brand roadmap will be adjusted.

Nurture the organizational culture: During times of crisis, many corporations tend to forget their most important and trusted stakeholder: the organization and its employees. It is the talent pool who is the back-bone of operations. They do not easily give up on things they trust, respect and identify strongly with. Management can benefit tremendously by involving the organization early and empower them to solve the crisis. Most management teams forget about this important resource.

Conclusion
Many Asian business leaders are yet to realize that building and sustaining iconic brands is a boardroom discipline. It involves skills and experiences in public communication and stakeholder issues management - it must engage with the public and take center-stage at any time. This is a critical point for Toyota, CEO Akio Toyoda and the leadership team.

Toyota is strongly linked to Japan Inc. so much is at stake for Japan and its reputation moving forward. The Toyota brand must step up actively on the global scene, and take control of the crisis. It is easier said than done successfully.

But Toyota represents one of the strongest brands in the world, and its brand equity will help the company steer through the rough waters. It is up to the boardroom and CEO Akio Toyoda to take leadership.