Brands and Branding (The Economist Series) [Hardcover]

Rita Clifton (Editor), John Simmons (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1576601471 | ISBN-13: 978-1576601471 | Publication Date: February 2004 | Edition: 1st

Although the balance sheet may not even put a value on it, a company's brand, or its portfolio of brands, is its most valuable asset. For some companies the brand can account for as much as 70 percent of its market value.

This book argues that because of this and because of the power of not-for-profit brands like the Red Cross or Oxfam, all organizations should make the brand their central organizing principle, guiding every decision and every action. As well as making the case for brands and examining the argument of the antiglobalization movement that big brands are bullies which do harm, Brands and Branding provides a review of best practices in branding, covering everything from brand positioning to brand protection, visual and verbal identity to brand communications. Finally, the third part of the book looks at trends in branding and the future for brands.

Written by seventeen experts in the field, Brands and Branding sets out to provide a better understanding of the role and importance of brands, as well as a wealth of insights into how one builds and sustains a successful brand.
.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

RITA CLIFTON is the head of Interbrand London.

Until recently John Simmons was a Director of leading brand consultancy Interbrand. He is now an independent writer and consultant working on brands as diverse as Boots, the BBC and BirdAs Eye (to mention only the BAs).
John has a degree in English Literature from Oxford University. He worked extensively in publishing as a copywriter and as communications manager at the National Economic Development Office before joining Newell and Sorrell in 1984. There he led a design team on many major identity and communication programmes, including those for Royal Mail and Waterstone's. He has advised clients on the use of language to express the distinctiveness of a brand, including Marks & Spencer, Guinness and Air Products.
John is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has three times been a judge in the 'writing for design' category at the D&AD awards, this year as Foreman of the jury. He runs AWriting for designA workshops for D&AD and for thewriter.co.uk.
He has written two books on the subject of the relationship between language and identity. We, me, them & it: the power of words in business was published by Texere in November 2000 and became a business books bestseller on Amazon. The invisible grail: in search of the true language of brands was published in the UK in March 2003, has just been published in the USA and is already in its second edition. In November Profile Books published the Economist Guide to Brands and Branding, jointly edited with Rita Clifton. JohnAs latest book My sisterAs a barista: How they made Starbucks a home from home has just been published by Cyan Books, and he is the series editor for CyanAs Great brand stories.
John is a founder member of 26, the not-for-profit group that champions the cause of more creative language in business.

The Economist is one of the world's most notable magazines. Circulation in the United States and Canada is now more than 700,000 weekly.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press; 1st edition (February 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576601471
• ISBN-13: 978-1576601471
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #788,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique, Refreshing, and Informative Perspectives, September 21, 2004

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brands and Branding (The Economist Series) (Hardcover)

This book offers a variety of perspectives on brands and branding from several dozen different experts on marketing. I especially enjoyed reading it because most of these experts draw upon experiences outside of the United States. True, core concepts have global relevance but strategies and tactics to create, increase, and leverage brand equity necessarily vary from one marketplace to another. For example, Sameena Ahmad discusses "Globalisation and brands" (Chapter 11), Kim Faulkner examines "Branding in South-East Asia" (Chapter 13), and Simon Anholt offers some valuable insights concerning "Branding places and nations" (Chapter 14). As Patrick Barwise correctly notes in the Preface, if top managers are becoming brand stewards, they must address issues such as:

* Brand measurement, accountability, and understanding
* Brand support
* The brand owner's social and ethical stance
* Making the experience of buying and using brand consistently deliver on the promises made for it

Re this last issue, there is often a substantial gap between promises and performance, especially insofar as service brands are concerned. Hence the importance of eliminating that gap and thereby earn and then sustain consumer trust through performance of the highest possible quality. Once again I am reminded of Warren Buffett's observation that price is what we charge for what we sell but value is what a customer thinks it's worth. The experts whose counsel is included in this volume can, together, help their shared reader to gain a better understanding of issues such as those cited previously as well as (in Barwise's words) "the social and financial value of brands, current best practice in branding, and some of the emerging issues around this important, complex, and ever fascinating topic."

Among the countless value-added benefits provided in this book are various checklists which are included within several of the individual essays. For example, those which suggest the financial uses of brand valuation (page 43), methodologies for brand positioning (page 81), conclusions which can be made about visual and verbal identity and their relationship to brands in the future (pages 125-126), and questions to be addressed insofar as brand protection is concerned (page 168) as well as a recap of the main themes and arguments previously provided in previous chapters (pages 227-229). Of course, it remains for each reader to determine the nature and extent of relevance of the book's 15 chapters. There are many outstanding books on the subject of brands and branding and this is one of the best.

Those who share my high regard for it are urged to check out Levitt's The Marketing Imagination, Paul Nunes and Brian Johnson's Mass Affluence: Seven New Rules of Marketing to Today's Consumer, Alina Wheeler's Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands, Harvard Business Review on Brand Management (The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series), Marc Gobe's Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People, Lynn Parker and F. Joseph Lepla's Integrated Branding: Becoming Brand-Driven Through Company-Wide Action, Simon Anholt's Brand New Justice: The Upside of Global Branding, and Matthew W. Ragas and B.J. Bueno's The Power of Cult Branding: How 9 Magnetic Brands Turned Customers Into Loyal Followers (and Yours Can, Too).

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview of Brands and Brand Management, June 30, 2004

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Brands and Branding (The Economist Series) (Hardcover)

This volume greatly benefits from many different perspectives and authors in tightly written essays that focus on brands, brand management and the future of brands.

Part one examines the definition of what a brand is, the history of brands and the social and economic importance of brands. Many will be intrigued to see that there are now methodologies for valuing brands independently of the operations of the companies that own them. For many public companies, the operating value is relatively slight without the brand values. There are a number of mini cases involving the world's most valuable brands (such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's). This background will be especially relevant to the general reader and for students new to the subject.

Part two looks at brand development and management in detail. This section will be very valuable to those who have not had much experience with brands.

Part three looks at the future of brands. I found this section to be the most interesting as the book looked at issues like the global debate about whether brands "steal" from poor consumers and workers in developing countries, the rise of Asian brands, country branding, adding social agendas to brands and protecting brands from counterfeiters worldwide.

The essays are nicely summarized in Rita Clifton's concluding essay, "The Future of Brands."

Each essay contains many references that can allow those who wish to learn more the pathway to take such steps.

I was pleased to see that the essays did not simply espouse the traditional wisdom on brands, but chose to "push the envelope" to provide more up-to-date and aggressive thinking.

I have a hard time imagining that you could find a better introduction to the subject in such a slim volume.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Expert on branding explains the big names, July 4, 2006

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brands and Branding (The Economist Series) (Hardcover)

This anthology, edited by Rita Clifton and John Simmons with Sameena Ahmad, contains an abundance of information about branding. In fact, with 17 contributors, different experts repeat the same information more than once, further emphasizing and validating these points. For example, several contributors note the social value of brands; later, an entire chapter covers the same topic. Some sections delve into the material more deeply than others, but much of it is sophisticated enough to appeal to the most dedicated brand specialist. The book includes discussions of branding esoterica such as the distinction between verbal and visual identities, and the role of brands in a global marketplace. Despite the repetition and the inclusion of some dated studies, we brand this book as an important one for anyone concerned with branding, especially with its new role as a source of financial value.