A New Brand World: Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the 21st Century [Hardcover]

Scott Bedbury (Author), Stephen Fenichell (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 4, 2002

No company can succeed without a great product or service, but in today's competitive market it also needs a brand. Transcending the tangible aspects of a commodity and nurturing a brand to build a deeper and more enduring emotional connection with customers has become one of the most critical and complex challenges facing businesses today, whether they are multinational corporations or small, local enterprises.

How did a company like Nike use "Just Do It" to launch its way to success and become part of global culture? How did Starbucks reinvent a familiar 900-year-old product and change the way people drink coffee around the world? In A New Brand World Scott Bedbury, who was at the heart of both companies as they became two of the greatest branding success stories of our time, explains how to apply the principles that grew these companies more than fivefold and established their trademarks as leaders in their categories.

With fascinating anecdotes from his own in-the-trenches experience and dozens of case studies (including companies like Harley-Davidson, Guinness, the Gap, and Disney), Bedbury offers practical, battle-tested advice and an analysis of why some brands succeed where others fail. A New Brand World will show any business-whether a Fortune 500 corporation or a neighborhood store-how it can begin to realize its full brand potential and build lasting value.

Inspiring, visionary, and witty, A New Brand World will become the key book for building brands in the twenty-first-century economy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bedbury, who headed advertising and marketing divisions for Nike and Starbucks during their phenomenal growth, coaches on establishing a memorable brand in this appealing, well-organized guide. Observing consumers overwhelmed by countless choices, he argues that now's the time to build a brand that evokes trust from its customers. "Unless your brand stands for something, it stands for nothing," he declares, as he explains methods for companies big and small to articulate their essence and ethos (their "genetic code" in Bedbury's catchy parlance) to core customers, potential customers and employees. The inside stories on Nike and Starbucks constitute the bulk, but Bedbury elaborates his belief that "the brand is the sum total of everything a company does" with lively anecdotes from the experiences of Harley-Davidson, Microsoft and others. To Bedbury, brands have not only a genetic code but also karma. As strongly as he emphasizes the need to develop growth strategies that spring organically from a brand's core, he also believes that successful brands respect or meet customers' emotional needs. The histories of his companies have provided Bedbury with much material about a company's relationship to its community, and he's especially cogent on stewardship of a brand once it's established and growing, highlighting questions of leadership and responsibility to the world beyond the office. He calls for advertising and marketing that will inspire rather than merely inform (… la "Just Do It"). In the course of explaining his eight principles, Bedbury reminds aspiring industry leaders to pay attention to simplicity, relevance and innovation while counseling them to focus patiently on the long run. (On sale Mar. 4)Forecast: Bedbury's connection to Nike and Starbucks will generate interest in his firsthand knowledge of those success stories on his author tour. His unpretentious, experience-based guidelines should gain good word-of-mouth in the business world. While his approach will be too New Age for some, detractors can't argue with his success.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Senior vice president at Starbucks in the mid-1990s, Bedbury should know all about branding. Here are his secrets.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 218 pages
• Publisher: Viking Penguin, Inc.; 1st edition (March 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670030767
• ISBN-13: 978-0670030767
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #375,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent! October 3, 2002

By wync

Format:Hardcover

I was fortunate enough to work briefly with Scott Bedbury during an internship at Silicon Valley startup Tellme Networks in summer of 2000. So I can vouch for the fact that not only is he a visionary business thinker, but he is also one of the most genuinely likable people I have ever met. So it was with some excitement that I picked up his book ...

As the wizard behind the brands of Nike and Starbucks, Scott probably has on of the best resumes on the planet for writing a book on developing a strong brand. The book is an excellent introduction for those who are unfamiliar with the concept of "brand", as well as a terrific resource for those engaged in the daily struggle of trying to build a powerful one.

The book covers how to discover your brand, how to manage the growth of your brand, how to champion the brand within a large company where everybody might not "get it", and how to build a strong brand by helping communities.

Real-life examples abound, highlighting the benefits that can accrue to a company with a strong brand and the disastrous consequences of ignoring issues of brand. Throughout the book we learn of brands that "get it" (Nike, Harley Davidson), brands that fell from glory (Marlboro, Levi's), brands that were revived (IBM, Apple), and brands that have never got it (Exxon, Microsoft).

What makes the book stand out in particular is Scott's wealth of personal experiences that he peppers throughout the pages. Some great examples include:
- Scott's early efforts to widen Nike's brand focus from hardcore "sports" to the more inclusive "fitness".
- Scott's decision at Nike to avoid traditional outsourced market research in favor of internal Brand Strength Monitor (BSM) focus groups. (Interestingly, Scott blames Nike's abandoning of BSM for its inability to properly anticipate or respond to its labor controversy)
- Scott's involvement in the difficult decision to allow Starbucks coffee to be served on United Airlines, highlighting the difficult decision Growth versus Brand Dilution. (how do you recreate the "coffee house" atmosphere and serve a perfect cup at 30,000 feet?)
- Scott's hot tub encounter with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer (you'll have to read it to find out)

Overall, Scott has done an excellent job of effectively communicating his experiences. A New Brand World is an excellent read for anyone interested in learning about or mastering the concept of branding.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brand is a promise... March 4, 2002

By R. A. Meyer

Format:Hardcover

All to often marketers forget that a brand is a promise between you and your customers. Once you break that trust it is very hard to win customers back. This book is about the simple relationship all brands should be having with their customers and, as responsible marketers, with the community. Consumers today are more demanding than ever and unless marketers learn these lessons now they will learn later, the hard way !!!

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Building A Brand, Responsably March 12, 2002

By William Gary Barrett

Format:Hardcover

Scott Bedbury's new book, A New Brand World acts as a wake up call at a time when many companies are giving in to the financial pressures imposed by a weakened economy and corporate consolidation by deserting Brand Marketing and with it Brand responsability. As Scott Bedbury points out in his highly entertaining and well written book, creating and maintaining a Brand is hard work and requires a long term committmenton from Senior Mangement down to everyone in the company. Brand vitality incompasses not only having a good advertising campaign, but also having a corporate committment to consistantly maintaining the brands core values and the trust created between the consumer and the Brand. In eight quickly paced chapters, Bedbury serves up a combination of case histories, insider stories and an impassioned arguement for Corporate responsabilty that speaks to his experience and observations of what worked and did not work for some of the worlds greatest marketers. With direct experience at the most Senior Marketing level with some of the Worlds most successful and respected brands including Coke, Nike and Starbuck's, A New Brand World is the ultimate insiders guide to what goes on inside that giant corporate hairball alluded to in the book.
A great read and an action plan for successful brand building, this book should be a must read for anyone involved with or wishing to become involved with Brand Marketing.