Product Description

Although the balance sheet may not even put a value on it, a companyÂ’s brand or its portfolio of brands is in many cases its most valuable asset, accounting for as much as 70% of a firmÂ’s market value in some cases. This book argues that because of this and because of the power of not-for-profit brands like Oxfam, all organisations should make the brand their central organising principle, guiding every action and decision. Divided into three parts and written by eighteen experts on the subject, this fully revised and updated guide to brands and branding examines the case for brands, outlines best practice and the future for brands. It includes chapters on brand valuation, what makes a brand great, brand strategy, brand experience, visual and verbal identity, brand communications, brand protection and new chapters on branding in India and brands in a digital world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79531 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

About the Author
Rita Clifton is chairman of Interbrand, a global brand consultancy. The other contributors come from a wide range of organisations with extensive expertise in brands and branding.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Overview of Brands and Brand Management
This volume greatly benefits from many different perspectives and authors in tightly written essays that focus on brands, brand management and the future of brands.

Part one examines the definition of what a brand is, the history of brands and the social and economic importance of brands. Many will be intrigued to see that there are now methodologies for valuing brands independently of the operations of the companies that own them. For many public companies, the operating value is relatively slight without the brand values. There are a number of mini cases involving the world's most valuable brands (such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's). This background will be especially relevant to the general reader and for students new to the subject.

Part two looks at brand development and management in detail. This section will be very valuable to those who have not had much experience with brands.

Part three looks at the future of brands. I found this section to be the most interesting as the book looked at issues like the global debate about whether brands "steal" from poor consumers and workers in developing countries, the rise of Asian brands, country branding, adding social agendas to brands and protecting brands from counterfeiters worldwide.

The essays are nicely summarized in Rita Clifton's concluding essay, "The Future of Brands."

Each essay contains many references that can allow those who wish to learn more the pathway to take such steps.

I was pleased to see that the essays did not simply espouse the traditional wisdom on brands, but chose to "push the envelope" to provide more up-to-date and aggressive thinking.

I have a hard time imagining that you could find a better introduction to the subject in such a slim volume.

Unique, Refreshing, and Informative Perspectives
This book offers a variety of perspectives on brands and branding from several dozen different experts on marketing. I especially enjoyed reading it because most of these experts draw upon experiences outside of the United States. True, core concepts have global relevance but strategies and tactics to create, increase, and leverage brand equity necessarily vary from one marketplace to another. For example, Sameena Ahmad discusses "Globalisation and brands" (Chapter 11), Kim Faulkner examines "Branding in South-East Asia" (Chapter 13), and Simon Anholt offers some valuable insights concerning "Branding places and nations" (Chapter 14). As Patrick Barwise correctly notes in the Preface, if top managers are becoming brand stewards, they must address issues such as:

* Brand measurement, accountability, and understanding
* Brand support
* The brand owner's social and ethical stance
* Making the experience of buying and using brand consistently deliver on the promises made for it

Re this last issue, there is often a substantial gap between promises and performance, especially insofar as service brands are concerned. Hence the importance of eliminating that gap and thereby earn and then sustain consumer trust through performance of the highest possible quality. Once again I am reminded of Warren Buffett's observation that price is what we charge for what we sell but value is what a customer thinks it's worth. The experts whose counsel is included in this volume can, together, help their shared reader to gain a better understanding of issues such as those cited previously as well as (in Barwise's words) "the social and financial value of brands, current best practice in branding, and some of the emerging issues around this important, complex, and ever fascinating topic."

Among the countless value-added benefits provided in this book are various checklists which are included within several of the individual essays. For example, those which suggest the financial uses of brand valuation (page 43), methodologies for brand positioning (page 81), conclusions which can be made about visual and verbal identity and their relationship to brands in the future (pages 125-126), and questions to be addressed insofar as brand protection is concerned (page 168) as well as a recap of the main themes and arguments previously provided in previous chapters (pages 227-229). Of course, it remains for each reader to determine the nature and extent of relevance of the book's 15 chapters. There are many outstanding books on the subject of brands and branding and this is one of the best.

Those who share my high regard for it are urged to check out Levitt's The Marketing Imagination, Paul Nunes and Brian Johnson's Mass Affluence: Seven New Rules of Marketing to Today's Consumer, Alina Wheeler's Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands, Harvard Business Review on Brand Management (The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series), Marc Gobe's Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People, Lynn Parker and F. Joseph Lepla's Integrated Branding: Becoming Brand-Driven Through Company-Wide Action, Simon Anholt's Brand New Justice: The Upside of Global Branding, and Matthew W. Ragas and B.J. Bueno's The Power of Cult Branding: How 9 Magnetic Brands Turned Customers Into Loyal Followers (and Yours Can, Too).

Brands & Branding
Excellent book well worth reading would recommend it to anyone wishing to learn about Branding