Balanced Brand: How to Balance the Stakeholder Forces That Can Make Or Break Your Business [Hardcover]

John Foley (Author), Julie Kendrick (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787983098 | ISBN-13: 978-0787983093 | Publication Date: February 3, 2006 | Edition: 1

Companies usually assume if their sales are good, then their brand and reputation must be strong. But all too often, they don't have a clear understanding of the values that drive brand and reputation and actually sustain long-term profitability and growth. This leaves companies vulnerable to dangerous backlash between corporate values, and those of their stakeholders: customers, employees, shareholders, media, government, and community. Even well-known and seemingly successful brands and reputations have suffered from this backlash (e.g. Nike and overseas sweatshops, Wal-Mart and unfair employment practices, McDonald's and obesity issues.) Every stakeholder applies their personal and professional values to judge the performance of a company. Branding expert John Foley has developed the BalancedBrand System, which helps companies assess corporate values, identify potential flashpoints, and align values to build a stronger brand and reputation. BalancedBrand identifies and helps manage the forces that will change the way business does business. Foley and co-author Julie Kendrick have created new tools that build and protect brands and reputations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Trusted long-term relationships come to pass only through aligned principles and values, not short-term gimmicks and strategies.  This engaging book, Balanced Brand, focuses on bringing the person to the brand, not the brand to the person."
--Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 8^th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness 

"Brands are experiences, delivered by multiple stakeholders across the entire organization. Balanced Brand outlines a clear, concise, useful, and usable method to re-think your entire range of branding activities.  If you want your brand to succeed in the years ahead, you'll need the insights you'll find in Balanced Brand."
--Don Schultz, president, Agora, Inc., and professor emeritus-in-service, Northwestern University

"John Foley has written a remarkably comprehensive and cogent analysis of branding, and his commonsense approach has equal application to the public and private sectors.  His BalancedBrand System requires that executives seek to align their stated values with their actual operating values, that they assess the values of their stakeholders and seek to harmonize them with the institutional values, and that there be authentic brand-building conversations. Foley demands authenticity, honesty, and discipline.  But the rewards in terms of trust, branding, and reputation are immense."
--Mark G. Yudof, chancellor, The University of Texas System

From the Inside Flap

More than 62 million people watched the presidential debates. Amazingly half the country selectively heard one message while the other half heard something completely different.  What made the difference were the personal values people used to filter and interpret what they saw and heard.  Values are what drive behavior in politics, commerce, and your business.

Successful companies often assume that if sales are good, then their branding must be effective. They often pay little attention to what actually sustains their brand and reputation, leaving them vulnerable to dangerous backlash if a rift develops between their values and those of their stakeholders.

Every stakeholder—customers, employees, shareholders, and community members—plays a role in the overall success of a company. When corporate values are out of alignment with stakeholder values, trouble is right around the corner. In this groundbreaking book, branding expert John Foley shows how to understand and effectively respond to the needs of each stakeholder group, emphasizing reputation in balance with brand to avoid damaging misalignment between them. Balanced Brand provides tools for identifying potential backlash flashpoints and for designing internal and external communication strategies for projecting appropriate values.

This important resource is based on years of research, including interviews with senior managers who struggle with the challenges of foreign competition, outsourcing, and the relentless cycle of reducing costs while adding value to compete in a global market. The book delivers the systems and tools to assess and align corporate values with stakeholder values. Using these guidelines, companies will have a new way to manage stakeholders that results in building and protecting a strong brand and a strong reputation. The competitive advantages created by Balanced Brand can help any company—no matter how large or small—succeed.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (February 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787983098
• ISBN-13: 978-0787983093
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.8 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,395,954 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Led to higher ground..., February 11, 2006

By 

Steven Borsch (Eden Prairie, MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Balanced Brand: How to Balance the Stakeholder Forces That Can Make Or Break Your Business (Hardcover)

Balanced Brand guided me to higher ground.

For nearly two years, my head has been awash in the technology and behavorial shifts accelerating due to internet connectivity globally and what that entails. There is a river of change flowing and it's reaching flood stage. Blogs, podcasts, vlogs, online social networking sites, news aggregation tools (allowing people to scan and consume hundreds of blog posts and news headlines in a single sitting), and instant online conversations about brand-affecting events are facilitating shifts of consciousness and awareness that profoundly effects a brand.

As a consequence of all of these enabling technologies and shifts, there is a new participatory culture emerging which is allowing stakeholders in record numbers to participate vs. just being passive recipients of some miscellaneous communications campaign or messaging thrust...and this emerging culture is out of anyone's control.

Balanced Brand made me stop and reconsider the complexities of all these changes occurring and instead climb to the top of the hill, sit down and look down on the river. I thought about the deeper meanings and strategies required to guarantee the river down below will be navigable...regardless of what technologies or cultures reveal themselves. This book is not about technology or participatory paradigm shifts, however. It's about balance, the essence of a brand, and how to create and utilize balanced brand strategies.

Within its pages is a framework that allows any organization to understand and assess their values, those of their customers, shareholders, employees and communities within which they're involved, and be able to then understand where and how to align them. Though it doesn't say this as overtly as I am, what I thought was obvious was that -- once this work was completed -- strategic direction would be crystal clear.

Once balanced branding strategies are in place, every stakeholder knows what to do. They know what the brand stands for and what it means. Employees know how to perform and use the river-of-change-shifts to facilitate brand enhancement instead of being victims and drowning in it. What hit me squarely due to my involvement in technology, is that a participatory culture can be created that sparks innovation and creativity, grows top-line revenue and customer satisfaction, all of which is of vital importance to management and shareholders.

That was the higher ground I was guided to by Balanced Brand. It helped me focus and see that first-and-foremost it is the essence of the brand and the brand in practice that really matters. Everything else then falls into place.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great review for great balance, February 21, 2006

By 

Shannon T. Nelson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Balanced Brand: How to Balance the Stakeholder Forces That Can Make Or Break Your Business (Hardcover)

John Foley's approach to combining brand identity with corporate values and culture is a worthwhile strategy to assimilate into one's company. Everyone is aware that a brand will get a customer 'in the door' but Foley's strategy for identifying key stakeholders and keeping them engaged, is a strategy every company should learn how to employ and practice. I would highly reconmend this book to all who are interested in advancing both the mission and bottom line of their companies. This book would have particular appeal to young people entering the work force as a tool for staying engaged with their comapany's customers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative new insights on growing brands in today's world, February 21, 2006

By 

KB Clark (Shoreview, MN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Balanced Brand: How to Balance the Stakeholder Forces That Can Make Or Break Your Business (Hardcover)

Finally, an approach that takes branding to the next level! I found Foley's thinking on creating and protecting brands by aligning corporate and stakeholder values to be refreshing and enlightening. Today's news is filled with examples of corporate failure due to scandals, breech of trust, and greed. This only underscores the need to project appropriate values.

Additionally, I believe Foley's perspective on the interdependence of a strong reputation and a strong brand is extremely insightful-bordering on revolutionary. He explores how the effects of competition, abrupt changes in customer preference, skyrocketing promotional costs, and even a company's own actions can erode the brand or reputation.

Foley includes helpful strategies and tools to assess stakeholder alignment and put his systems into practice. I highly recommend this book to anyone charged with managing brands and building corporate growth. In my opinion, this is a very important body of work.

Bridget Clark
Corporate Branding and Marketing