Until Josiah Wedgwood, Britons ate from wood and pewter plates. Until Henry Heinz, women toiled over pickled foods. Until Michael Dell, few people owned a personal computer, let alone dreamed of buying one "built to order." According to business historian Nancy F. Koehn, these pathbreaking entrepreneurs shared a powerful gift: the ability to discern how economic and social change would affect consumer needs and wants. In "Brand New", Koehn introduces us to six extraordinary leaders of brand creation who lived and worked during periods of widespread change: Josiah Wedgwood in the Industrial Revolution; Henry Heinz and Marshall Field in the Transportation and Communication Revolution; and Estee Lauder, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and Michael Dell in the Information Revolution.Through compelling and engaging profiles of these entrepreneurial visionaries, she reveals a provocative relationship between economic turbulence, household priorities, and company strategy that holds important lessons for today's brand builders. According to Koehn, these forward-thinking individuals understood the profound effects that socioeconomic change has on what customers want, have, and can afford as much as on what companies make - and were masters at exploiting the enormous business opportunities these demand-side shifts created. Indeed, the brands and companies created by these individuals have become such a part of everyday life that we've made them part of common speech: we pass the Heinz; eat off Wedgwood; order a Starbucks.Koehn draws from their diaries, correspondence, and official business records to demonstrate that these entrepreneurs were more than savvy marketers; they were institution builders. She shows how each used brand not as a logo, but as a vital strategic tool for creating best-of-class companies - and for building powerful organizational capabilities that supported their connections with customers and helped make new markets for their offerings. Distilling critical lessons for businesses operating in both the traditional and on-line worlds, "Brand New" will convince every entrepreneur of the remarkable power of brands to transform start-ups, gain competitive advantage, and change lives.
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Amazon.com Review
In Brand New, Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn looks at six entrepreneurs and the extraordinary brands they built. The entrepreneurs include Josiah Wedgwood, Henry Heinz, Marshall Field, Estee Lauder, and Michael Dell. What interests Koehn is not so much the success that these brands enjoyed as much as the trust these household names were able to inspire in consumers. Koehn makes her study especially relevant to today's marketers in that each of the entrepreneurs she looks at developed their brand during a period of tumultuous change. For example, Wedgewood's tableware became popular during the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the middle class; Schultz's coffee empire blossomed in the 1990s and the present-day information revolution. Part business history, part marketing manual, Brand New is a valuable study of brand development that belongs on every thoughtful marketer's bookshelf. --Harry C. Edwards
Review
"It's [Brand New] really good stuff, the true human drama of business, engagingly written and illustrated with great photos." -- The Star Tribune, May 2001
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It's probably a result of less-than-fully applying myself during my college years, but I tend to pre-judge any book by an academic as boring. I'm glad that didn't stop me from reading Nancy Koehn's book, "Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers Trust From Wedgwood to Dell."
Koehn is a professor at no less than the Harvard Business School. She is also an excellent writer, and she understands that the essence of getting good information across is stories. Brand New is a book of stories about branding. It is anything but boring.
Koehn divides the book into two giant sections, The Past and The Present.
In The Past, she includes the stories of Josiah Wedgwood, H. J. Heinz and Marshall Field. All the stories are told in detail enriched by facts, insights, and quotes. All of them contain lessons for today's businessperson. Most of the lessons are about branding, but there's a lot more.
Read this book and you will find out all about how Josiah Wedgwood changed the common practice by impressing his own name in the unfired clay of his works. That's impressive. But you will also learn how his partnership with Thomas Bentley took Wedgwood's strengths and his insight about branding and turned them into a highly profitable business.
You'll learn about why H. J. Heinz packed his product in glass jars and how he kept control of his distribution. You'll hear about the 1902 giant opening at Marshall Field's and you'll learn about Field's varying relationships with his partners.
In the section on The Present, you will get the story of Estee Lauder and how she changed not only her name and image but also the face of cosmetic marketing through magnetism and incredible persistence. You'll hear how Howard Schultz wound up at Starbucks Coffee and why it bears his imprint, and you'll hear about Michael Dell without overmuch mention of the legendary dorm room.
The stories themselves make delightful reading, but the learning is probably even more important than the enjoyment. These stories illustrate how specific, successful entrepreneurs took a look around at things that were happening in society and developed products and brands and marketing and distribution systems to take advantage of them. These insightful and inspiring stories will help you understand your own business and find ways to make it more profitable.
Koehn is a professor at no less than the Harvard Business School. She is also an excellent writer, and she understands that the essence of getting good information across is stories. Brand New is a book of stories about branding. It is anything but boring.
Koehn divides the book into two giant sections, The Past and The Present.
In The Past, she includes the stories of Josiah Wedgwood, H. J. Heinz and Marshall Field. All the stories are told in detail enriched by facts, insights, and quotes. All of them contain lessons for today's businessperson. Most of the lessons are about branding, but there's a lot more.
Read this book and you will find out all about how Josiah Wedgwood changed the common practice by impressing his own name in the unfired clay of his works. That's impressive. But you will also learn how his partnership with Thomas Bentley took Wedgwood's strengths and his insight about branding and turned them into a highly profitable business.
You'll learn about why H. J. Heinz packed his product in glass jars and how he kept control of his distribution. You'll hear about the 1902 giant opening at Marshall Field's and you'll learn about Field's varying relationships with his partners.
In the section on The Present, you will get the story of Estee Lauder and how she changed not only her name and image but also the face of cosmetic marketing through magnetism and incredible persistence. You'll hear how Howard Schultz wound up at Starbucks Coffee and why it bears his imprint, and you'll hear about Michael Dell without overmuch mention of the legendary dorm room.
The stories themselves make delightful reading, but the learning is probably even more important than the enjoyment. These stories illustrate how specific, successful entrepreneurs took a look around at things that were happening in society and developed products and brands and marketing and distribution systems to take advantage of them. These insightful and inspiring stories will help you understand your own business and find ways to make it more profitable.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Brand New is a brilliantly written book about entrepreneurs, brands, consumers, business history, and socioeconomic change. The book explores these subjects through the examples of six entrepreneurs-Josiah Wedgwood, H. J. Heinz, Marshall Field, Estée Lauder, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and Michael Dell-and the brands and companies they created during times of economic and social change: Wedgwood during the Industrial Revolution, Heinz and Field during the Transportation and Communication Revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Lauder, Schultz, and Dell in our time.
Koehn is a perceptive historian and biographer as well as an astute analyst of brand creation, entrepreneurship, and organization-building. She explains how the entrepreneurs in her book were able to understand the economic and social change of their times and anticipate and respond to demand-side shifts. This understanding, she argues convincingly, enabled these entrepreneurs to bring to market products that consumers needed and wanted and to create meaningful, lasting connections with consumers through their brands. Koehn also focuses on the importance of these entrepreneurs as organization builders who understood that their success depended on developing organizational capabilities that supported their products and brands. Her book is very well-researched throughout, and uses primary archival documents extensively in the historical chapters on Josiah Wedgwood, H. J. Heinz, and Marshall Field. Koehn also brings her entrepreneurs and the stories of how each built his or her company and brand to life with her talent as a biographer and historian.
The book's emphasis on drawing lessons from both past and present offers many valuable insights for those interested in coming to a better understanding of brand creation, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial management, and organization-building. Koehn's emphasis on the demand side of the economy and on entrepreneurs and companies making connections with consumers through the brand distinguishes her book as an important work of business scholarship on brands and entrepreneurship. A lively, interesting, and engaging read, Brand New is also valuable reading for anyone interested in business, economic, or social history or biography of business leaders. I highly recommend it!
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Sick of reading books about branding in the new economy, ebrands, digital brands and every other thing that marketers try to sell you? Then read this book for inspiration, which is not only about branding, but poignantly illustrates the pleasures and the pain of entrepreneurship, and managing a growing business.
This book is very well written, with excellent observations and pointers for success. Although the majority of the book is case studies, these are not the usual 'filler' material that have become so common in business books. I highly recommend the studies of Wedgewood, Heinz and Marshall Field, and how they took advantage of new trends such as railroads and communications. These are not so far from the revolution that the Internet has placed many corporations in. The historical perspective is excellent, and for once this is not written by a big 5 consultant with something to prove, or a service to flog.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
a very useful and interesting business history book
Did you know that in 1859 Americans consumed about eight pounds of coffee per year, per capita? Or that by 1939 it was fourteen pounds? Read more
Published on April 5, 2003 by Hugh Claffey
5.0 out of 5 stars
Overview of successful entrepreneurial approaches to brands
Koehn has produced a weighty and informative look at the way successful entrepreneurs have used brands to achieve a number of goals. Read more
Published on February 13, 2003 by frumiousb
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brands Old: Inspiration for Brands Yet to Be
As she completed her research and then began to write this book, Nancy Koehn made several important decisions. Read more
Published on November 25, 2002 by Robert Morris
5.0 out of 5 stars
everything you wanted to know about branding . . . and more
professor koehn presents the subject of branding in a fascinating historical perspective; a interesting, insightful and sometimes surprising read. Read more
Published on November 24, 2001 by Bruce Gilardi
4.0 out of 5 stars
Motivation for Entrepreneurs
Nancy Koehn's Brand New inspires the entrepreneur in us all. Her book gives readers a greater appreciation for the risk and rewards of entrepreneurship, and an admiration for... Read more
Published on June 29, 2001 by Julie A Petry
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reflections from one of Koehn's former MBA students
Nancy Koehn's Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumer's Trust from Wedgewook to Dell is a book for the summer reading lists of anyone about to begin business school, their... Read more
Published on June 15, 2001 by Sarah Thorp
5.0 out of 5 stars
Building Brands Using Common Sense
Koehn did an amazing job in conveying to the reader the challenges facing entrepreneurs in creating brands. Read more
Published on June 13, 2001 by "dvallabhaneni"
5.0 out of 5 stars
Earning Consumer's Trust
This highly readable business book profiles six successful entrepreneurs from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Read more
Published on June 11, 2001 by "thomas_benson"
4.0 out of 5 stars
Building Trust by Being Dependable When Others Aren't
Stories are the way that we all learn best. Professor Koehn has provided six meticulously detailed ones about brand development by 18th and 19th century entrepreneurs (Josiah... Read more
Published on June 2, 2001 by Donald Mitchell
4.0 out of 5 stars
Entrepreneurs Build Brands on Shoestrings in Changing Times!
I found this book hard to grade, but easy to read. Stories are the best way for people to learn, and this book has six interesting ones (about Josiah Wedgwood, H.J. Read more
Published on May 25, 2001 by Donald Mitchell
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 143
books:
See all 143 books this book cites
- Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, pt. 1-2 (House Document Series) by Mary Ellen Condon-Rall on 11 pages
- Direct From Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry by Michael Dell on 8 pages
- Pour Your Heart Into It (Highbridge Distribution) by Highbridge on 7 pages
- New and Improved: Story of Mass Marketing in America by Richard S. Tedlow on 6 pages
- How Much Is That in Real Money?: A Historical Price Index for Use As a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States by John J. McCusker on 6 pages
See all 143 books this book cites
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