Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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

Even as we're feeling we've got all our bases covered, finally, Mr. Foley opens our eyes to a critical consideration too many executives--in both the private and public sectors--have failed to appreciate. He not only does an effective job of presenting and substantiating the problem, he then tells us how to deal with it. I really wish this book had been available a decade or more ago! It should be on every manager's "must read" list.

It's fitting that this book came out just as the Enron trial begins. Because it's all about how not to be an Enron... or a Wall Mart, for that matter. This is a must read for business people of every stripe. The premise is simple: that instead of just thinking about the quarterly bottom line, truly successful companies today must pay attention to their values and reputations. In other words, if your customers, employees and other stakeholders love and admire you, it will pay countless dividends. The author offers up simple steps companies can take to get that alignment, and the anecdotes bring everything to life. It made me realize that the brands I admire and buy all have that alignment. A very good read.

In this age of corporate greed, Foley offers a blueprint for companies to fuse what's inportant to the world with good business. He shows how companies can do well by doing good. Every middle manager--on up--should read this book.

Dan Buettner

Traditional advertising and public relations are based on the art of persuasion.

While persuasion certainly has its place in marketing, long-term relationships are built on a shared values. In his new book Balanced Brand, John Foley has developed an innovative new model for helping companies align their corporate values with key stakeholder values.

This groundbreaking work is a must read for any senior manager who has the responsibility of long-term relationships, brands and reputations. Balanced Brand: How to Balance the Stakeholder Forces That Can Make Or Break Your Business

Balanced Brand by John Foley with Julie Kendrick is a refreshing and enlightening book that helps people focus on alignment of values. It is not every day that business leaders read about the success of their companies from the true alignment of their Head, Heart and Hands. As the book explains the success of companies like Tiffany is due to their focus on employee training on Tiffany's true values-world-class quality( Their Head), uncompromising service( Their Heart) and social responsibility( Their Hands). They have been able to align their values since 1837 by focused training and transfer of their Core Values, which happens to Align with the many stakeholders.

I enjoyed reading and learning from the Balanced Brand and I would recommend this book to all , who are looking to Crystallize their thinking about Brands. This book will help them develop a plan for achieving that goal, develop a sincere desire for the things that are real for them and all of their stakeholders and also to develop supreme confidence in their organization and it's abilities to execute the plan consistently over many decades.

Jay Seshadri
Om Shanthi Om ( means Peace in Sanskrit)
SESHADRI LLC

Just read Balanced Brand. I run a company and I can use the
values model Foley has created both for how I manage my operations and staff as well as how I promote my products in the marketplace. It's where business has to go in order to become the centerpiece of a values-based society. I'd put this in there with Good To Great, The Soul of Capitalism and Bowling Alone.