Brand Manners: How to Create the Self Confident Organization to Live the Brand [Hardcover]

Hamish Pringle (Author), William Gordon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0471496065 | ISBN-13: 978-0471496069 | Edition: 1

How often has a company's handling of a customer's telephone call turned out to be a turn-off? How often has a customer query in the retail environment turned into a relationship-killer, rather than a loyalty-builder? No matter how good the work behind brand positioning and communication, a reputation can be ruined by one poor interaction with a customer. The challenge for any brand-focused company is to ensure that the whole organisation actually 'lives' the brand. New in paperback, Brand Manners is the runaway bestseller that demonstrates why a company needs, and how it can create, a branded service culture that consistently exceeds customer expectations. Drawing on a host of major case studies, Hamish Pringle and William Gordon show how any company can align its internal and external brand values to build a 'self-confident' organisation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...enlightening and inspiring..." (Public Relations Quarterly, Winter 2001)

Review

If you want your company to be "marketing-effective", this book should be required reading by the CEO, management and the employees." Philip Kotler --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (March 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471496065
• ISBN-13: 978-0471496069
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,816,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In 2001 following a 26-year career in UK advertising agencies I was appointed Director General of the IPA, the trade association for leading advertising, media and marketing communications agencies in the UK (analogous to the 4As in the USA).
Amongst many IPA projects, I have been especially closely involved with the validation and development of my 'Diagonal Thinking' concept (www.diagonalthinking.co.uk).
I co-authored 'Brand Spirit' with Marjorie Thompson, 'Brand Manners' with William Gordon, and 'Brand Immortality' with Peter Field, and wrote 'Celebrity Sells'. I'm now working on a new book on media strategy, co-authored with Jim Marshall.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars brands, demytholigised, February 12, 2001

By 

Dr David Frankel (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brand Manners: How to Create the Self Confident Organization to Live the Brand (Hardcover)

At last, the idea that a brand is an organic and potent means not only in competitive warfare but in securing the affections and loyalties of human talent. As more and more workers work for multiple 'employers', so a recognition of the values and uniqueness of the workplace of the moment becomes urgent, even essential. Gordon and Pringle cleverly make the jump between BRAND as external tool and as a bonding mechanism for employees, alliances and customers. Brands create communities, and, in an increasingly depersonalised world, the ability for brand to anchor meaninful dialogue and community has never been more essential.

The book wittily explains that brands have to be organic to take changing opportunity, environment and ever smarter customers/workers into account. For this reason, getting the brand 'right' is less important than keeping the brand contemporary and ahead of the pack. Being surpriseful (as much as strategically well-focused) is a theme of the book.

Most 'brand' texts view brand as a subset of marketing and product-positioning. Brand manners, however, takes a wider view where brand and culture/identity meet, and behaviour stems from that interface. It's marketing meets human-capital. I also liked the fact that old and new economy get equal attention rather than the unrealistic tilting to the latter.

Adroitly written, great cartoons, and unexpected case-studies. This makes Brand Manners a good book for a long plane-journey (I read mine when snowed up at Boston airport). It will be fascinating to see if Accenture (William Gordon is a VP there) will take Brand Manners to their heart as a guide to what their brand new brand can and might be.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hugely original book for any company that lives branding, May 22, 2001

By 

Christopher Macrae "intangibles mapmaker" (Rockville, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brand Manners: How to Create the Self Confident Organization to Live the Brand (Hardcover)

My impression is that this book is the most original addition to our literature since Kapferer's first edition of Strategic Brand Management in the 1990s. This does not necessarily mean that it will find a large audience though I hope it does.

Organisational brand linkages are embedded in the Brand Manners 4-dimensional framework by presenting two sides to every dimension : the customers and the company's. The four dimensions of the brand promise are named: Rational (What?) Emotional (How?) Political (Why?) Spiritual (Whither)

The customer according to this model uses each of these dimensions to evaluate how integratedly a brand's promise is 'created', 'conveyed' and 'kept'. On the corporate side, the mirror image to integrate is labeled as 'Encounters' with customers, 'Behaviours' involved and 'Rewards' that result. This provides 24 (ie 2 times 4 times 3) entries interlinked through The Brand Manners Book of Life....

Methodology represents about half the book. This is complemented by a rich variety of case studies, and a collection of practitioner briefs. These are called "brand manners how to guides" and are provided for each of : Chief Executive, Marketing Director, Employee, Management and Customer!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST THINKING ON BRANDS TO COME ALONG IN YEARS..., January 2, 2002

By 

Byron Reimus (Yardley, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brand Manners: How to Create the Self Confident Organization to Live the Brand (Hardcover)

There is simply no other book on this subject that comes even close to providing the new thinking, insights and perspective that Pringle and Gordon do. BRAND MANNERS should be required reading for every executive in every organization, especially those who aspire to be leaders over the next decade. At a time when brands and branding play an increasingly more critical role to the fundamental success of every business, readers will find this a truly invaluable (and actionable) guide.