Brands and Branding (Economist) [Hardcover]

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).

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.

This anthology, edited by Rita Clifton and John Simmons with Sameena Ahmad, contains an abundance of information about branding. In fact, with 17 contributors, different experts repeat the same information more than once, further emphasizing and validating these points. For example, several contributors note the social value of brands; later, an entire chapter covers the same topic. Some sections delve into the material more deeply than others, but much of it is sophisticated enough to appeal to the most dedicated brand specialist. The book includes discussions of branding esoterica such as the distinction between verbal and visual identities, and the role of brands in a global marketplace. Despite the repetition and the inclusion of some dated studies, we brand this book as an important one for anyone concerned with branding, especially with its new role as a source of financial value.

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