The New Strategic Brand Management is a book that offers real new perspectives on the topic of Brand management. Beyond having dedicated sections for specific types of brands (luxury brands, corporate brands or retail brands for example), this book offers an in-depth theoretical perspective along with very good global illustrative examples. It enables the reader to disentangle concepts such as brand image, brand identity, brand persoanlity, brand territory, brand values etc. It is helpful in understanding which steps should be taken at all stages of the brand evolution (new brand, expanding brand, mature brand etc.)
It also shows how to use a brand to avoid the commodity magnet, how to use a brand architecture to by-pass territory issues or to support brand extension, how to create new brands in the socially inter-connected 21st century of Web 2.0, always from both the manager and the consumer perspectives, in B-to-B and B-to-C environments.
Last but not least, there is a whole section dedicated to the finacial aspect of brand management: brand valuation. I was always wondering how these valuations are made, and I finally understood the complexity and strategies that lead to the numbers that you can read in the press and in rankings.
This book does not offer the colorful pictures that usually fill this kind of books, instead, each page is used to analyze, demonstrate and evaluate a concept or a theory.
I would recommend it to any student in management, and to any manager who is willing to keep up-to-date with latest theories and trends.