Why brand value belongs in the boardroom

South Africa’s 30 biggest brands became worth an extra R232 billion in just two years. This growth comes from the everyday decisions businesses make including how they treat customers, handle problems, focus their efforts and live up to what people expect from them.

Kantar’s 2026 BrandZ Top 30 Most Valuable South African Brands puts the collective value of those brands at R724.6 billion in 2026, 47% higher than in 2024. It also found that three quarters of those brands are seen by consumers as highly ‘Meaningfully Different’; these brands grew twice as fast as the rest.

In a cost-conscious market, this kind of distinction can strengthen customer preference, support pricing power and build resilience.

Far from marketing

Yet the decisions that influence brand value are often made far from marketing. They sit in a pricing review, a customer-service policy, a procurement decision, a product redesign, a response to a complaint, or a leadership conversation in which the customer’s experience is not in the room.

This disconnect is the reason Red & Yellow Creative School of Business developed Brand as Capital, a new executive education programme for senior leaders. As brands increasingly impact business outcomes, they cannot be treated as something marketing communicates only after the business has made its decisions. Brand needs to be considered while those decisions are being made.

Brand is often discussed when there is a campaign to launch or a reputation to repair. But the decisions that create or erode value usually happen earlier. Brand as Capital was designed from real-world case studies and the experience of working with leadership teams, to help leaders see the commercial consequences of decisions across the organisation, not only in the marketing function.

Meaningfully different

Kantar identifies FNB as the most Meaningfully Different brand in its 2026 Top 30, valuing it at US$4.461 billion, up 45% since 2024. Kantar links this to the bank’s move from product-led to advice-led banking through its Reimagining Help initiative.

This was a strategic choice that made its services feel more personal, useful and connected to customers’ everyday needs. The lesson is that decisions about the business’ model, service and experience can compound into brand value over time.

In May 2026, Dis-Chem publicly distanced itself from social-media posts reportedly linked to a shareholder and member of the founding family, after the matter prompted boycott calls and an investigation by the South African Human Rights Commission. The retailer said he was neither a board member nor an employee and had no authority to represent the company.

The episode shows how quickly conduct associated with a founder, shareholder or prominent business figure can become a brand issue, regardless of where formal authority sits. Customers do not experience a business through its organisational chart. They experience the cumulative effect of its decisions, actions and associations.

Name on the line

For Mike Pashut, CEO and founder of ChangeCars, the customer experience makes the issue inseparable from business performance. “Customers do not see the departments behind a business. They see the result of the decisions we make. In a high-consideration category such as car buying, our brand is built on trust. We put our name on the line with every decision.”

Leadership teams therefore need to look further than the immediate departmental targets. Does a decision reinforce the promise the business makes? What trade-off will stakeholders notice? Will it protect preference and pricing power, or create costs that are later paid through lost loyalty, remediation or reputational repair?

This is an argument for brand consequence to have a place alongside financial, legal, operational and people risk in the boardroom. The businesses best placed to build lasting value are those that recognise that customers do not experience an organisational chart. They experience the cumulative effect of what the business does.

Leadership need

Brand as Capital is Red & Yellow’s response to that leadership need. The programme gives C-suite executives, senior functional leaders, entrepreneurs, board members and high-potential executives a structured way to examine the links between brand value, risk, competitive advantage, resilience and governance in their own organisations.

When brand is brought into the decision early enough, it becomes more than a communication output. It becomes a form of commercial discipline: one that helps leaders identify where value is being created, where it is exposed, and what needs to change before the cost of repair becomes far greater than the cost of good judgement.

* Summary created by AI

Nadia Ellis is the manager of curricula and research and head of programme design at Red & Yellow Creative School of Business. She leads the design of its Brand as Capital executive education programme.