By: Lisa Bratkovich, Ani Matson, & Jennifer Welch
In conversation with many of our clients, we find most CEOs still treat reputation and experience as results of doing business well. That assumption is now wrong and increasingly dangerous for the health of the business.
At The CMO Syndicate, our position is unequivocal:
Reputation and experience are no longer outcomes to be measured after the fact. They are foundations that must be deliberately designed, governed, and executed.
Customers expect it. Employees feel it. Boards are asking for it.
And yet, many organizations cannot clearly explain how reputation and experience are being built systematically across the business.
If you cannot answer that question with confidence, you have a structural risk.
The Expectation Shift CEOs Cannot Ignore
Customers no longer separate brands from experiences. Boards no longer separate reputation from performance.
Every interaction with sales, service, digital, onboarding, leadership behavior, even internal decision-making contributes to how your organization is judged.
Not occasionally. Continuously.
The thing to take note of is that the implication is profound:
Your brand is not what you say. It is what the organization does consistently or, inconsistently, at scale. Any brand marketer already knows and believes this, but as a CEO, this may not be on your radar.
This is why reputation volatility is rising, why trust erodes faster, and why strong brands can unravel quickly despite solid products or market positions.
Your system is exposed.
Marketing’s Role Continues to Fundamentally Change
Marketing can’t sit adjacent to the business and “support” growth through campaigns and awareness.
That model has been obsolete for some time, but in many industries, this is still not understood throughout the C-Suite.
Marketing must integrate into:
Before you say it, this does not make marketing “bigger”. It makes it more accountable. Win/Win!
When marketing is disconnected from operations, experience fragments. When experience fragments, reputation becomes fragile.
Brand Building Is Back — But Not the Way CEOs Remember
Yes, brand building matters again. But not as awareness. Not as slogans. Not as advertising theater.
Brand building today is about tangible, repeatable brand experiences:
In other words:
Brand is not built in the market. It is built inside the organization first. That’s why we always say “brand is built from the inside out.”
And most organizations are not set up to do this deliberately.
The Uncomfortable CEO Question
Here is the question every CEO should be asking, but many are avoiding:
Are reputation and experience explicitly designed into how our business operates, or are we hoping they emerge on their own?
If the answer is:
Then the honest answer is no.
Hope is not a system. Measurement is not design. Intent is not execution.
Our Point of View at The CMO Syndicate
We believe:
This is not about marketing excellence. It is about organizational coherence. Companies that get this right scale faster, adapt better, and earn trust more durably. Companies that do not feel increasingly brittle, especially under growth, complexity, or scrutiny.
The Call to Action for CEOs
Do not ask: “Is our brand strong?”
Ask:
If your answers to those questions make you uncomfortable, that discomfort is diagnostic. Because in today’s environment, not knowing how reputation and experience are built is itself a strategic liability.
Closing Perspective
Reputation will not protect you if experience is inconsistent.
Experience will not scale if brand is superficial.
And marketing cannot compensate for organizational misalignment.
This is the work ahead for CEOs, not as a branding initiative, but as a business imperative.
At The CMO Syndicate, we exist to help leadership teams confront this reality and design organizations that can deliver on the promises they make. Because in the end, experience is strategy made visible.
📩 Contact us here to learn more.