Building Brand Identity: A Strategy for Success in a Hostile Marketplace (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: positioning prompt, strategic personality, identity interrogative, Burger King, Southwestern Bell, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Building Brand Identity

Brand identity is the special blend of positioning and personality that gives a product or service its unique character in the mind of the consumer. It has never been easy to establish and maintain a strong identity, and now, with the fracturing of conventional media, mounting consumer distrust, and an unprecedented proliferation of new brands, it's more difficult than ever.

Written by a successful branding and marketing communications expert, Building Brand Identity provides managers with proven, practical steps for overcoming obstacles and developing a comprehensive strategy for winning the "brand wars."

Drawing on his work with Bank of America, Hunt-Wesson, DHL Worldwide Express, South-western Bell Yellow Pages, and other high-profile clients, Lynn Upshaw equips you with cutting-edge techniques for building and managing a formidable brand identity in today's cluttered and confusing global marketplace, including how to:

• Perform customer analysis and zero in on your markets using the latest individual-oriented targeting strategies
• Identify brand assets and leverage them to build a stronger, more enduring brand identity
• Position your product or service using a versatile new approach that is clearly superior to traditional thinking and product positioning
• Create an irresistible strategic brand personality that will differentiate and elevate your brand above the competition
• Capitalize on the exciting new branding possibilities provided by state-of-the-art communications platforms, including interactive marketing
• And much more

Throughout Building Brand Identity, Upshaw helps bring abstract concepts to life with literally hundreds of timely, real-world examples taken from a wide range of industries. Especially helpful are five in-depth case histories in which he carefully reconstructs the steps taken by marketplace winners Disney, Nike, Southwestern Bell, Procter & Gamble, and Saturn to turn their brands into household names. And he explains why Burger King is only now beginning to give McDonald's a serious run for its money.

Building Brand Identity supplies you with all the knowledge and tools you need to build and maintain a successful brand identity in even the most hostile marketplace. This is a book that belongs in the survival kit of every marketing manager, product manager, advertising executive, and public relations professional, as well as on the desk of every CEO.

Advance praise for Building Brand Identity . . .

"Lynn Upshaw has created a masterpiece for stewards of the great consumer brands of our time. Not since Procter & Gamble first created the brand management system in 1947 with Tide detergent has there been such a seminal contribution to consumer marketing. Building Brand Identity is a consummate roadmap for both the marketing practitioner and the academic. This is a must read for any marketing professional who hopes to create or sustain a vibrant and healthy brand in today's cluttered and competitive marketplace. This is one of those rare books which will make a real difference. Pass it by at your own peril." —Peter Sealey Former Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, the Coca-Cola Company Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley

"Lynn Upshaw's book is a rare business book that is both highly readable and informative. Chock full of examples, he provides practical guidelines to those who would build brand identities that will work in the marketplace." —David Aaker Author, Managing Brand Equity and Developing Business Strategies

"Many years ago, during the World's Fair held in New York City, one of the exhibitors handed out a button that read, 'I have seen the future.' After reading Lynn Upshaw's amazing new book, I dusted off my old button. If you're in business—and plan to stay in business—you really don't have a choice. You must read this book." —Jerry Della Femina

"The writing is superb . . . enormously engaging. I am particularly smitten by the breadth of examples. . . . Extremely practical, immediately useful on the job."—Charles Schewe Coauthor of The Portable MBA in Marketing

"Lynn Upshaw has written a thorough, realistic, and well-documented volume that affirms the lasting power of advertising and offers practical advice every marketing manager and advertising executive should take to heart. Building Brand Identity's greatest value is its constant stress on understanding and addressing the attitudes, desires, and aspirations of the consumer. Upshaw's many, vivid examples demonstrate, time and again, that the consumer's need—rather than the marketer's intuition—is the key to successful advertising in today's challenging marketplace."—Herbert M. Baum Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Quaker State Corporation, and former President Campbell Soup Company, North and South America

"There is likely no concern greater in the 1990s than the establishment, development, and care of brands. Upshaw's approach is clear, concise, filled with examples and, above all, geared to the new, information-rich marketplace in which brands exist. It's a must for any marketer or marketing organization."—Don E. Schultz Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University

From the Publisher

Using a practical analytical approach, this timely work presents information and insights on the daily challenges brand managers face. Divided into two sections, the first emphasizes the need to understand customers and the current brand's assets before proceeding to refashion the brand's positioning and personality. The second half presents a detailed look at the practicalities of branding in today's tough market conditions along with an in-depth description and analysis of six major brands which have succeeded in creating strong identities. Includes hundreds of actual, up-to-the-minute examples.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (June 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047104220X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471042204
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #176,884 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, though not up to date, December 26, 1998

By A Customer

This is definitely a good book about building a brand identity in a competitive marketplace. Two chapters report some real world examples, updated to the end of 1994 (Nike, Burger King, Saturn and others). Considering the changes in the past three years in the e-world, this title lacks some more updated and recent information on the Web.

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful, insightful, and entertaining., January 27, 1999

By A Customer

Upshaw's text hits the mark in two ways. It surveys a very complex, demanding environment and reduces it to several clear concepts. And it provides a range of examples, timeless ones, I think, that illustrate how the concepts are applied in the real world. Building Brand Identity reaches at least two different audiences, professionals who want new tools to evaluate their own brand management and the layperson/newcomer audience seeking to learn the techniques involved in brand development. The reader can use Upshaw's ideas as a business manual or as a tool to better understand what he calls a hostile marketplace. And both types of reader will be entertained along the way.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Critical in Today's World, August 12, 2002

By A Customer

I found this book to be extremely useful with its steps and strategies on, as the title states, building brand identity. Upshaw really delivers, and his case histories only serve to reinforce his ideas. Given how critical branding is nowadays, this book really delivers. It's a little out of date, though, but Guerilla PR: Wired compensated for that, handling some of the brand identity strategy techniques in today's digital age.