CMO Insights: The Brand Sphere – How DV’s Identity Resonates Across Markets

One of the many responsibilities of a global CMO is ensuring that no matter how many markets you’re operating in, your brand identity stays strong, shared, and consistent. That’s easier said than done.

A brand identity isn’t just a logo or a tagline. It’s the sum of your value proposition. Your tone of voice. Your culture. The essence that makes your organization recognizable and trusted everywhere it shows up. 

With a team spread across a range of geographical markets, what can be done to bridge different mindsets, break down silos, and channel regional experiences towards a common goal?

At DoubleVerify (DV), we think about brand identity as a sphere. At its core sits something universal. As that sphere touches the air, it takes on the color of its surroundings, adapting to local cultures, customer needs, and market dynamics. Both elements matter: the core provides consistency. The outer layer gives us relevance.

Localize a global vision

Firstly, you start with a unifying vision. Something everyone can believe in and get behind. At DV, that vision is simple: we make advertising better. Everything ladders up to this foundation. Our tools and innovations are designed to help brands succeed by making their digital investments more impactful, higher-performing, and more measurable. 

Without this universal core, you don’t have a brand. You have a collection of disconnected business activities. That’s not us. However, a universal truth only works if it’s expressed in ways that are meaningful locally. DV isn’t a monolith. We may have a singular brand identity, but we’re the sum of regional teams coming together, and this is where our strength lies. 

Decentralize execution

Our go-to-market approach is highly consultative. We bring our value proposition to the global marketplace with a keen ear to the needs of local territories. This means we rely heavily on our regional teams to help us understand the variations, customer needs, and emerging trends and behaviors in each territory. These regional leaders have the authority and agency to tailor their execution to meet their customers’ needs, all while staying true to DV’s global standards. I rely heavily on those local teams for the insight to adapt, while continually reinforcing the same global core.

Impact in action

One place where this balance is evident is in our DV Impact events. Everyone has the same DV feel, but no two are identical. Around a third of the program is dedicated to global content, typically a keynote that’s future-gazing, focused on innovation, and consistent across markets (though always tailored with local data and examples). The other two-thirds are locally driven, panels, fireside chats, and stories featuring regional leaders and customers. That mix ensures we’re adopting a global direction of innovation while grounding it in the real opportunities and challenges of that market.

Storytelling as a unifier

These gatherings and events don’t just inspire, they connect our global team, showing that the sum of local success stories is the global DV story. 

To champion these regularly, we run weekly operational calls across markets to stay aligned and monthly all-hands meetings where local teams share success stories. Sometimes those sessions are strategy-heavy, but often they’re designed simply to celebrate what’s working. Whether it’s an outstanding campaign or a competitive win.

On the surface these might appear as routine “updates” — but they add incremental fuel. They make what we do personal, and they remind us that the sum of local markets is the company.

Growth and evolution

Another dimension of maintaining brand identity is growth. We’re constantly evolving; sometimes organically, sometimes through acquisitions.

When we bring a company into the fold, it’s not just about the technology or product. It’s about incorporating their culture, expertise, and perspective into our own. That dynamism keeps our brand relevant and interesting.

Take our mantra: Verify. Optimize. Prove. It’s not just marketing copy; it’s an organizing principle that reflects the evolution of our solutions. Each element connects back to both our legacy strengths and our forward-looking innovation. It’s how we align what’s universal with what’s new.

Measure by measure

Finally, it’s crucially important that we continuously monitor our KPIs in each local marketplace. Measuring whether our vision continues to resonate at the local level isn’t about simply checking boxes. It’s about asking questions like, are we addressing the real opportunities and pain points of each market? Are local teams empowered to tailor messaging and execution? Do our events and campaigns feel both globally relevant and locally specific?

When the answers to our questions are consistently ‘yes’, we can be assured that the DV brand is continuing to hit the mark globally.

The brand sphere

At its heart, brand identity isn’t static. It’s alive, shaped by people, culture, and the stories we tell. This is a delicate balancing act, and a significant part of maintaining a global brand identity is reinforcing standards and ways of doing things. At the same time, we give our local teams the requisite autonomy, flexibility, and freedom to maximize go-to-market efforts and optimize the impact of our solutions and approach. The way the DV brand comes to life must have a consistent essence — a singular equity that is universal; however, our go-to-market around the world will be informed by local nuance and insight, and won’t be identical in New York, London, São Paulo, or Tokyo. And that’s exactly how it should be.