37 Inspiring Branding Quotes From Billionaires & CEOs
May 27, 2020 | Sean Foo
Scratching your head trying to figure how to brand your business? It’s time to get some inspiration.
Branding is a powerful tool as it builds an emotional connection with your customers, so they will buy only from you!
However, crafting a winning brand can be frustrating – there seem to be just so many things to consider.
But fear not, we can always learn from the world’s most successful billionaires and CEOs that owe their success to branding.
From Steve Jobs to executives of Twitter and Salesforce, here are 37 hand-picked branding quotes to inspire you with their wisdom!
What a Brand is
1. “A brand is a promise. A good brand is a promise kept.” Muhtar Kent, CEO of The Coca-Cola Company
2. “Your brand is not what you sell.” – Jon Iwata, past Senior Vice President of Marketing of IBM.
3. “A brand is a voice and a product is a souvenir.” – Lisa Gansky, Co-Founder of Global Network Navigator
4. “It takes a lot more than a great product to make a great brand.” – Emily Weiss, CEO of Glossier
5. “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” – Walter Landor, Founder of Landor
6. “A brand is a promise. A good brand is a promise kept.” Muhtar Kent, CEO of The Coca-Cola Company
7. “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
Importance of Building a Successful Brand
8. “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” – Steve Forbes, Editor-in-Chief of Forbes
9. “Our reputation is more important than the last hundred million dollars.” – Rupert Murdoch, Founder of News Corp
10. “If your business is not a brand, it is a commodity.” – Donald Trump, US President
11. “In designing a lifestyle brand, you have to know more than just designing clothes.” – Tommy Hilfiger, Founder of Tommy Hilfiger
12. “A word is a word, and a picture is worth a thousand… but a brand is worth a million.” – Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
13. “If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” – Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks
Building a Successful Brand through Excellence
14. “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
15. “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” – Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company
16. “If you look at companies with upside potential, Twitter’s right there. They’ve established a brand in a world where it’s extremely difficult to establish a brand.” – Steve Ballmer, past CEO of Microsoft
17. “Focus on building the best possible business. If you are great, people will notice and opportunities will appear.” – Mark Cuban, Serial Entrepreneur
18. “Let excellence be your brand… when you are excellent, you become unforgettable.” – Oprah Winfrey, Founder of the Oprah Winfrey Network
19. “A positive reputation is built by behaving consistently with sound principles, creating real value, achieving compliance excellence and living up to commitments.” – Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries
20. “I think brands need to stand for something, and they need to deliver superior performance. When you do them both, you connect with the consumers.” – David Taylor, P&G CEO
21. “Make every detail perfect, and limit the number of details to perfect.” – Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter
22. “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple
Building a Successful Brand through Culture
23. “Your culture is your brand.” – Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
24. “A company’s brand should be a reflection of the best things about it. And that’s often centered on its culture.” – Penny Wise, Chief Branding Officer of 3M
25. “Stay true to your values. That’s why you were a success in the first place, and that’s how you make incredible things happen.” – Rafe Offer, Global Marketing Director of Coca-Cola
26. “Presentation skills are key. People who work for you represent your brand. You want them to represent themselves – and represent you – in a certain way.” – Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce
Building a Successful Brand through Authenticity
27. “The most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart.” – Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks
28. “Determine who you are and what your brand is, and what you’re not. The rest of it is just a lot of noise.” – Geoffrey Zakarian, Serial Restauranteur
29. “The brand is strengthened when it is underpinned by real-life individuals, and not a ‘monolithic corporate presence’. – Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of AirAsia X
30. “Too many companies want their brands to reflect some idealised, perfected image of themselves. As a consequence, their brands acquire no texture, no character.” – Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group
31. “For better or for worse, our company is a reflection of my thinking, my character, and my values.” – Rupert Murdoch, Founder of News Corp
32. “We think it’s weird when brands try to act like your pal. I think there’s some nuance – I think it’s very important to be friendly, but not a buddy.” – Evan Spiegel, Founder of Snap Inc
Importance of Consistency for Successful Branding
33. “You have to create a consistent brand experience however and wherever a customer touches your brand, online or offline. The lines are forever blurred.” – Angela Ahrendts, Senior Vice President of Apple
34. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
35. “A brand is a living entity – and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures” – Michael Eisner, past CEO of Disney
36. “Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time.” – Elon Musk, Founder of Tesla, SpaceX
37. “Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.” – Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
“Pursue excellence and success will follow, pants down!” – Rancho, The 3 Idiots
At its core, even Rancho would agree that behind the success of the world’s biggest brands is through the pursuit of excellence.
What do you excel at that others don’t?
It could very well help you build a successful brand.
Now that you’ve glimpsed some insight from the world’s best branding quotes, we hope we have inspired you in your journey to crafting a brand that will stand the test of time!
Want more?
Get inspired with more motivational business quotes from amazing digital influencers and advertising legends!
