Faceless brands include big companies like American Airlines, Adidas, Chase and Visa. On the flip side, Richard Branson with Virgin, Marc Benioff with Salesforce and Marc Zuckerberg with Facebook represent brands where the founder has made a conscious decision to get his face out there from day one.
Let’s call brands that are indistinguishable from their founders founder-led brands. When you look at media coverage for founder-led brands, they seem to get a lot more of it -- and most importantly, a lot more interesting coverage than their faceless competitors. For example, when was the last time you saw anyone from American Airlines on the front cover of a magazine? Richard Branson is on at least one major magazine cover each month.
