Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand (Hardcover)

by David F. D'Alessandro (Author), Michele Owens (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this short, concise work, D'Alessandro, CEO of the John Hancock insurance group, entertainingly hammers home the importance of creating and maintaining a brand. In his view, a brand is whatever image a customer conjures up upon hearing a company's name, so everything from the firm's labor practices to its product and advertising must be taken into account. To make his points, D'Alessandro draws heavily on his former career in advertising and public relations. On having Orville Redenbacher as a client: "We literally thought he was insane." But in the end, he says, "Orville taught me...the power of a good brand to trump all rhyme or reason in the marketplace." From a consumer's point of view, brands save time, project a certain image to the rest of the world and make one feel part of the group that uses the brand. He discusses the steps to building a brand, consistently emphasizing that, if it is to resonate, the brand must have one simple image. D'Alessandro doesn't break much new ground here, but he succeeds at reminding everyone from the CEO to the people on the assembly line that their company's brand is its most crucial asset. Practical, psychologically astute and clearly written, this book has much to offer businessfolk of all stripes. (May 1)Forecast: A $500,000 advertising and publicity campaign, national radio and television interviews, a six-city author tour and D'Alessandro's savvy advice and irreverent humor will get the 100,000-copy first printing moving in no time.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
"Branding" has developed into one of the business world's hottest concepts, and for good reason. Branding is cited as the secret ingredient behind the tremendous corporate gains realized in recent years by companies ranging from FedEx, Rolex, Starbuck, Volvo, and most interestingly, John Hancock. John Hancock is one of the oldest brands in America. But in one crucial aspect, the company was 15 years ahead of its time when David D'Allessandro arrived there in 1984. John Hancock was facing exactly the same threat back then that many competitors worldwide are just now waking up to: the threat of extinction at the hands of new competitors with a better command of technology and a better grip on the expectations of modern customers. In the last ten years, over a quarter of John Hancock's traditional competitors have indeed gone the way of the dinosaur. John Hancock, on the other hand, has maintained average annual growth of nearly 20%. Its revenues have tripled in the last eight years and it has managed to take its credibility in the shrinking insurance market and transfer that credibility to the thriving investment market to become a major player. Throughout John Hancock's transformation from a sleepy old life insurer into a dynamic financial services firm, President D'Alessandro has been the unconventional leader of a once conventional company. He is the first marketer ever to become President of a large life insurer, a maverick and a bomb-thrower who speaks the language of the new world from the corner office of an old-line concern. Thanks to Hancock's stellar performance and D'Alessandro's own unfailing quotability, he has appeared on TV programmes such as "Good Morning America", "The Today Show", "CNN" and the "Bloomberg Fortune" to offer his views on marketing intelligently in the modern world, and has been featured in countless newspaper and magazine stories. In "Brand Warfare: Ten Rules for Building a Killer Brand", D'Alessandro explains why brand must come first, before any other business consideration. And he shows how his "brand first" philosophy helped John Hancock transform itself by inspiring innovations in distribution, advertising, technology and product mix, all to serve the brand. He uses his first hand experiences at John Hancock, as well as the things he has observed at other companies, both as a public relations consultant and as a student of the marketplace, to illustrate the ten rules for building and sustaining a successful brand, and with it, a great company no matter what industry.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 204 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies; 1st edition (March 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071362932
• ISBN-13: 978-0071362931
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #986,150 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read, April 10, 2001

By	Lesa Ukman (CHICAGO, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

David D'Alessandro has transformed John Hancock from a clubby, play-it-safe mutual company, to a leading, publically-traded financial services group where accountability, integrity and growth are embraced. Marketing has played a critical role in the company's transformation. Unlike other life insurance companies, Hancock is led by a CEO who understands branding and embraces big ideas.

D'Alessandro's list of pioneering moves and accomplishments within the world of sports marketing and sponsorship is long and legendary. The first sponsor - and saviour - of the Boston Marathon, the first to completely rename a college football bowl game for the sponsor, the first in the insurance category to become a worldwide Olympic partner, and the first sponsor to stand up to the IOC in the midst of its bribery scandal over bribes and say: "This will not stand. Change your ways or suffer the consequences."

Anyone who wants to know brand building, communications, public relations, advertising and sports marketing from the inside out, should read Brand Warfare. Written by an acclaimed CEO and branding maverick, the book introduces D'Alessandro's "brand first" philosophy and explains why brand must always take top priority over every other business consideration.

And, unlike books written by academicians and consultants, Brand Warfare's ideas are real world and street tested. D'Alessandro engineered Hancock's double-digit growth rate at a time when many of its competitors went under.

Whether you're an experienced CEO or just starting your career, anyone in any industry will benefit from D'Alessandro's 10 principles and his "brand first" approach. Brand Warfare should become required reading for business professionals.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reputation Counts: Good Branding Principles Detailed, April 4, 2001

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Mr. D'Alessandro is the CEO of John Hancock, and rose to that position after starting with the company as head of communications. The many successes that John Hancock has enjoyed certainly relate back to good brand thinking and implementation. Although the book contains many details about John Hancock's experiences, it mostly recounts examples from other companies to provide a full perspective on the difficulties of establishing and maintaining a positive brand image and awareness. My only complaints about the book are that it would have benefited from more context about how branding fits with other critical activities for corporate success and more constructive metaphors than those of warfare and competition.

Most students of marketing will scratch their heads at his list of 10 principles. Yet, I see these principles violated every day by dozens of leading companies. So, even if the rules seem obvious, it easy to go astray.

For example, "It's the brand, stupid." Despite this, few CEOs spend time measuring and understanding what is happening to image and awareness of company brands . . . must less thinking about what needs to be done. Most spend more time in 100 other areas that are mostly unrelated to brands.

Another good example is "If you want great advertising, be prepared to fight for it." I agree with his observation that many marketing executives and advertising agency people will tend to try to produce copy that will be easily accepted by company decision makers, rather than copy that will increase sales and profits. Many CEOs don't even realize how they have been maneuvered. Some don't care, like the CEO whose girl friend was in all of the company's ads. I meet CEOs who like to date the women who appear in the company's ads, so the problem hasn't disappeared.

To my mind, Mr. D'Alessandro is probably best at thinking through event-based marketing. Most companies are horrible in this area. The book is well worth its price just for the sections that explain how to select events to sponsor, how to work with the event's organizers, and how to connect to the event for maximum advantage.

The section on how you use advertising on how to create brand differentiation for relatively undifferentiated products was well done, but is probably too subtle for most to really understand. This section could probably have used some more details and examples.

John Hancock has done a great job of expanding its distribution for life insurance. I would have liked to have had more details about how the company handled the career agents to make this change acceptable to them.

If you just want to take one key idea away from this book, you should focus on the concept that everyone in the company should be constantly asking themselves before acting, "Will it help or hurt the brand?" Although the CEO has to pay attention, it's even more important that everyone else do so too.

Here are some more of the principles:

"Codependency can be beautiful." This is simply the idea that brands help customers by directing them to trustworthy suppliers, while these suppliers can more easily get customers. In a world with more and more choices, this is a more valuable relationship than ever for both sides.

"A great brand message is like a bucking bronco -- once you're on, don't let go." Company executives usually tire of campaigns long before customers do, because the executives have seen the commercials so much more often.

"Use your brand to lead your people to the promised land." This is a very thought-provoking section. He points out that the best people want to work with the best brands. The brand identity helps establish focus and discipline. A brand can also inspire people to accomplish more than they think they can (think of Wal-mart in its early days).

I was introduced to Mr. D'Alessandro more than a decade ago when he was starting to apply these principles at John Hancock. I remember clearly that he articulated the rules to me at that time. I was impressed then, and you should be too when you realize that these are things he has been thinking about and implementing for a long time. This is not just another public relations effort to buff up the image of a CEO. You are learning from one of the top practitioners.

After you have finished enjoying these interesting stories and valuable rules, I suggest that you think about yourself as a brand. What are all the impressions people have about you? How well known are you? How does this situation help or hurt what you want to accomplish? How can you use Mr. D'Alessandro's rules to help?

Then turn these same questions towards a public service activity you support.

Be a brand builder!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This brand of business advice deserves some attention, April 21, 2001

By A Customer

As a marketing professional who has spent the past decade trying to manage the ad agency, figure out what to pay for the sponsorship and preserve good creative while keeping the boss happy, I found great comfort in this book. After three short sittings, I came away from the text with the feeling that I had just had coffee with one of my MBA professors, the best marketing consultant in town and the guy who sits in the next office down. Brand Warfare offers sound advice for the toughest decisions that marketing principals have to make on a regular basis. In my opinion, the author's Rule #1 alone provides not only a solid framework for all marketing decision making, but also a mindset to live by for anyone in business. You've already found Amazon.com, now brew up some Starbucks, prop up those Nikes and enjoy Brand Warfare!