Book Review: David Aaker,Aaker on Branding: 20 Principles that Drive Success

With so many books in his kitty on branding, this short and precise book has a higher purpose as envisioned by Aaker, it is intended to propagate the theory of branding and the practice of brand management, by shifting the marketer’s eyes from short-term financials to build brands as long-term assets. Brands are assets of strategic value and it needs to be communicated in a manner to motivate organizations to invest in brand building. To start on this first, there has to be a brand vision to provide direction, inspiration and justification to the brand building effort. The chapter in the book details on the concepts that help to build the brand vision. A brand vision must incorporate a brand personality that would include a set of characteristics to which human beings can relate, only then can a relationship start. As per the author, a brand personality can help communicate product attributes, give energy, define a customer relationship and guide brand building programmes. Selecting the right personality can have a big edge in gaining and keeping visibility, differentiation and loyalty.

A brand personality may only help a product in an organization that has a higher purpose to differentiate it from other organizations. Specific organizational values serve as a basis for customer relationship and are enduring because they are difficult to copy. They help communicate a value proposition, provide credibility as an endorser and create a higher purpose valued by its customers and employees. One challenge is to identify what organizational values will work for a brand and the second is how to get credit for them. All these work as powerful drivers of brand relationships and loyalty. These are much broader and deeper than functional benefits as defined by the offering, going to basic needs and motivations. This also reduces the ability of the competition to differentiate on the basis of benefits.

The author suggests that to differentiate in the market, it is important for the companies to create ‘must haves’ and then build barriers for competition. This way they become less relevant and lead to high profit pay offs. It is important though that the potential must haves should be considered by the market as must have. It is important to have and cultivate branded differentiator which can be feature, ingredient, technology, service or programme that creates a meaningful, impactful point of differentiation over an extended period of time. It provides a way to own an innovation, provide credibility to it and make communication easier and more memorable.

In the process of building brands, the author suggests that the next step to be taken by the company should be considering framing a subcategory such that competitors are excluded or placed at a disadvantage. The author suggests ‘Framing’ because strong frames can smother and distort rational information processing and dominate brand decisions. Becoming, a sub-category exemplar, the best route of sub-category control, invokes selling the subcategory label and becoming the perceived market leader making sure that the sub-category wins is the route to brand growth.

The book has been divided into five parts. While the previous section details the first two parts, the third part is structured around principles that infuse life into brands. Brand building starts by exploring breakthrough ideas. Ideas must be facilitated by multiple methods and processes such as exploring external role models, analyzing brand touch points, identifying customer motivations and unmet needs, leveraging assets and being opportunistic. It is then important to identify customer sweetspots and let the brand engage with customers on activities that they are involved with. This is the start of a relationship.

Digital today is now a new approach to marketing and the book does not miss on that. It says that digital engages, allows rich content, targets and engenders trust. It builds brands by augmenting the offering, supporting the offering and creating brand building platforms. Success in digital would involve participating in a wide range of modalities and achieving integrated marketing communications.

Brand consistency is the next step for brands to consider as it can allow an effective position to build, allow a brand to own a position, make customers comfortable and lead to cost efficiencies. Consistency must not be viewed as strategic stubbornness but having a strong rationale for building a brand. Powerful brands are built from inside out. To create a strong brand in the marketplace, employees and partners need to both know the brand vision and care about its realization. A clear motivating internal brand will provide guidance and motivation to create programmes that will move the brand forward and avoid programmes that will confuse or undercut the promise. Creating a strong internal brand involves three stages—learning it, believing it and living it.

While suggesting ways to build powerful brands, the author cautions that though creating winning brands may feel great, it can be equally productive to avoid using relevance among an important part of the marketplace. Creating brand energy is the next crucial step because inadequate energy means a reduced chance of being visible when purchases are made, a perception of being old and boring and not for me and a deterioration of the brand image. Energy can be added to a brand through offering new vitality, energized marketing programmes and finding or creating an ownable or external brand energizer. In ‘managing the brand’ portfolio section, the author highlights the importance and risks associated with brand extensions while dedicating one chapter to defining and developing clarity for brand-related roles at various levels and concluding with how organizations must organise ‘branding’.

The book is well-written, crisp and meets the objective of providing a short readable document on branding as envisioned by the author.