Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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 !!!

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.

This book is one of the best on the subject of brands--why some fail and others succeed long-term. The classic marketing and business dilemma--product focus versus brand focus, is presented and evaluated carefully. Moreover, the book details how to define, build, manage, and evaluate a brand from a number of perspectives. The material is relevant given that the book just came out in February of 2002 and many recent brand topics are critiqued too--from Microsoft's legal woes to the dot-com bubble, and the driving forces that brand managers and executives will face in the coming years.

The author gives reasons why branding is so critical today (and in the future) and describes relevant, poignant brand experience stories as supporting evidence to the 8 principles for building a 'killer' brand. This is a versatile book -- the concepts presented lend themselves to any business and all product/service categories.

The author explains many subjects that continue to haunt brand managers today: how to develop a brand through analyzing customer needs--both physical and emotional, analysis and definition of brand values that must embody a brand and every employee within the company, and how to use one's gut to help keep the brand's core values on track as the company grows or is faced with challenges from changing business environments.

I especially liked the section on brand development reviews. These regularly scheduled reviews on a number of brand issues and topics will help any marketer who develops (or inherits) a brand by reinforcing what is important for long-term brand development.

It is difficult to review a book that one has enjoyed reading and then say that it was not up to the mark (in terms, of course, of only my expectations.)

No doubt that Scott Bedbury's work is a fast paced read, his writing is lucid and quite frequently quotably light-hearted. There is a lot of material here for people in larger corporations or even general marketing folks. And where Bedbury truly shines is in the case studies he presents in the 8 chapters.

But if, like me, you set off on this book looking for some newfangled insights into the world of branding, this is not the book for you. The title claims to proffer "8 principles". Let's face it -- at the end of the day, principles are not that hard to create, and this becomes quite clear when you reach the end of the book and wonder if you have learnt something new.

But I am being unfairly critical. From his style, it seems an approachable business book was precisely what Bedbury's intended?

As a comprehensive introduction to the field of branding, I'd recommend "Strategic Brand Asset Management" by Keller. For a discussion of some innovative yet reasonable forms of brand creation, especially on a shoestring, I'd usually point to a PR related book or "60-minutes Brand Strategist."

But as a business book, to be read by executives on a plane and have ample to talk about, or as a non-technical introduction for neophytes to the branding industry who place less emphasis on a structured analytical framework and are more interested in a soft springboard into the field, "Emotional Branding" and this book from Bedbury are pretty near the top of my list of recommendations.

Good stuff, if you aren't expecting a summary of last decade's JCR.

This is an extraordinary book. The best book on branding that I have read. (I have read almost all of them).

Not only are the real world examples tied to two of the greatest brands in the world: Nike and Starbucks, but the author has a perspective on branding that I thought was keenly insightful and useful to almost anyone who needs to work with and understand brands.

As a an owner of a marketing agency and a professor of strategic communications all I can say is I'm glad I read it (and wish that I had written it.)

It is refreshing to read a management or marketing book that is rational and entertaining.

Scott Bedbury brings to live a solid and well-organized set of principles about branding at both the product and corporate levels, and liberally sprinkles each with examples from his work at Nike and Starbucks. He is also not shy about noting the glories and failures of other branding efforts.

If you are not responsible for branding, the book is still worth reading as it clearly illustrates what branding is, what brand is not, and how branding should evolve. If you are responsible for brand management, then this is required reading.

I just finished this book, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The examples in the book are both informational and entertaining. As I read it, I found myself turning to anyone who was next to me, and sharing the stories with them. I particularly enjoyed the Nike, Starbucks, Coke, and Guinness sections. Definitely recommend the book.

This is a rather disappointing book with no more real insight on how to build a brand than is available elsewhere. That Mr. Bedbury was instrumental in developing both Nike and Starbucks brands is beyond dispute. He has done it--twice. However I found little in the way of advice for smaller companies that do not have the resource. Many brands are build today not using a large marekting budget. Google and Starbucks etc. I prefer 60-Minute Brand Strategist by Idris Mootee, a very interesting book on brand strategy with some unconventional thinking. I guess tha because the author's background is a strategy consultant rather than an ad agency or marketing executive.

I have read dozens and dozens of books on branding. They are largely worthless drivel. I have taught marketing, pr and advertising for 20 years in addition to owning and running an agency for eleven years. This is the best book on branding I have ever read by far. A New Brand World is well written, insightful and filled with brilliant examples of how it is actually done by a master.

If you care about branding you must read this book. I gave a copy to every employee in my agency.

I'd give it six stars but they won't let me.