Marketing and finance don’t always see eye to eye on the subject of branding (or should we say, the value of branding). Many creatives don’t fully understand the numbers and few finance people can quantify or qualify creative. These issues may stem from semantics, as each defines “value” quite differently.

Depending on whether you’re on the marketing side or the financial side of the business, branding is either viewed as an investment or as an expense. Those who see it as an expense, are unlikely to see returns, and those who can’t articulate the value that branding can bring are unlikely to attain a budget that is sufficient to carry out their claim. If your message isn’t being well received, it’s up to you to change the delivery—when talking to finance people, talk brand in financial terms.

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s avoid the higher level view of a brand being an experience, a promise, an expectation… and stick with a more pedestrian definition of brand:

A brand is both a marketing and legal device for differentiating goods and services. Where commodities are undifferentiated, interchangeable offerings (low margin), brands are considered unique and are legally protectable (high margin).

The above definition isn’t likely to receive a defensive response, because it defines brand as being the opposite of something financial people understand, a commodity. Now we can map that commodity and the brand, on a simple economic curve. This translates “brand” into economic terms, changing the question from “Does branding have value?” to “What is the value of X?”

So, while creatives may see brand as expressing unique and desirable benefits to a targeted audience to create preference, financial people see brand value as the premium consumers are willing to pay for a given product or service.

By aligning perspectives, marketing and finance can have the same conversation and determine appropriate budgets based on a common definition of brand and of success. After all, the differences are semantic. Both parties are essentially defining a commercially viable business as a high profit-to-cost ratio. The difference in viewpoint is how to get there.