Abstract
The Future of Branding, edited by Srivastava and Thomas, is divided into four sections, each dealing with an aspect of branding. For this review, I will provide a brief overview of each of the chapters.
Section 1, “Brand Strategy” comprises three chapters. The first chapter, “Selecting the Brand Architecture to Match Your Strategy” by Kapferer provides a logical discussion of factors to be considered in multi-brand situations, as well as the importance of brand strategy to overall corporate vision and strategy. The second chapter, “A Strategic Approach to Gross Profits: Defining, Measuring, and Maximizing Customer Value” by Kumar and Rajan, discusses three components of customer value—customer lifetime value, customer brand value, and customer referral value. The authors provide a good understanding (although practitioners may at first be challenged by the equations) of the multidimensional nature of brand value both with respect to an individual consumer purchase and the influence of individual brand purchase on other individuals’ brand choice. The third and final chapter in this section is “Branding in Retail” by Martinez-Ribes provides a review of private label branding in Europe with implications for the US markets. The chapter provides food for thought regarding the potential for retailers to utilize private label products more strategically as a positioning tool and not just as a lower priced alternative to a national brand.
Section 2, “Brand Building” comprises seven chapters. Chapter 4—“Brand Identity: Brand Naming Process and Brand Linguistics in the International Context” by Schmitt and Zhang—discusses the international implications of brand names and planning brand names for more universal application. Chapter 5—“The Six-station Model of Corporate Identity: Developing and Assessing the Model” by Suvatjis and Chernatony—introduces their six-station model of corporate identity comprises the head (top management), strategy (brands/products), creativity (visual identity), communication (internal/external, digital), human power (stakeholders both internal and external), and the critical triplet (company reputation, corporate image, and personality) stations. Chapter 6—“Brand Development Process and Planning” by Keller—is reminiscent of more traditional brand textbooks. The author discusses a wide range of branding concepts and provides guidance on brand positioning/management. Chapter 7—“Managing the Brand Experience” by Schmitt—provides a discussion on the importance of brand experience. Drawing on consumer-behavior concepts, the author makes the case that brand experience should be managed, not only for brand success but also to address other marketing issues such as positioning and segmentation as well. Chapter 8—“Rethinking Brand Development in an Interactive Marketplace” by Schultz—reports that brand preference levels have been declining in recent times and suggests that it is time to review brand management concepts. Toward that end, the author presents a research agenda to inform the next generation of brand management tools. Key elements on the agenda include shifting to behavioral data as opposed to psychological data, increased use of longitudinal analysis, networked systems, multidimensional models, financial focus, and connections between brand and other organizational factors. Chapter 9—“Luxury Brands” by Patrick and Hagtvedt—suggests that the range of products that can be marketed as a luxury product needs to be expanded. It is argued that many consumers are trading up on common products including health care, plumbing fixtures, and the like which presents opportunities to market these products as luxury products. Chapter 10—“The Dynamics of Brand Trust” by Thomas—provides a review of the literature on brand trust and discusses the implications of trust on brand success as well as providing a conceptual model of brand trust. While this chapter was insightful, in light of several recent large-scale data breaches, I was hoping for a discussion of data breaches and their impact on brand trust.
Section 3, Leveraging Brands comprises four chapters. Chapter 11—“Branding and Emerging Markets” by Roll——provides a discussion of the importance of emerging markets, in particular, Asia for growth and in many cases for survival. The author presents a four-step model that includes innovation, collaboration, sustainability, and strategic leadership. Chapter 12—“Opportunities and Risks in Co-Branding and Licensing” by Parkhurst—details brand expansion strategies and illustrated by several case studies. The author also provides a discussion of risks and opportunities associated with brand expansion along with a brief list of actions a firm can take to reduce risk. Chapter 13—“Brand Revitalization” by Keller—provides a discussion of ways that a firm can regain lost brand prominence. The author suggests that it is important for fallen brands to either recapture lost equity or to find new sources for brand equity. A flowchart model is provided. Chapter 14—“Brand Identity Strategy for Mergers and Acquisitions” by Reddy and Jaju—provides a discussion of brand redeployment. The authors present case studies, as well as analyzing actual merger/acquisition data provide evidence that mergers and acquisitions are useful ways for companies to redeploy their brands.
The final section is Brand Performance Management. It comprises four chapters. Chapter 15—“The Great Debate: Managing Brands versus Managing Customers” by Reinatz—builds the case for customer management as alternative to brand management. Customer management recognizes that different customers provide different value to companies in terms of profitability. In cases where “not all customers are good customers” it may be beneficial to forgo the traditional brand management mass marketing approach and pursue a more individual focused strategy. Chapter 16—“Brand Imperative: Protecting Your Most Valuable Assets” by Andrien, Benoit, and Zerrillo—discusses the importance of actively valuing and protecting brands. The chapter also provides a detailed discussion of laws pertaining to brands including a discussion of how to position a brand for legal protection. Chapter 17—“Hidden Value of Brands in Mergers and Acquisitions” by Bahadir—provides a discussion of how brand value impacts the value of a firm in the context of a merger and acquisition. The discussion includes the influence of both the buying firm and selling firm on the value of a brand. Chapter 18—“Role of Brands in Managing Innovations” by Srivastava—discusses innovation as it relates branding. In this context, innovation is not limited to developing new products or process but also includes innovation in the context of improving current situations. The author discusses the role of innovation during various stages of the product life cycle.
The Future of Branding is a useful and convenient collection of material with respect to branding. Marketing, as all business disciplines, must be constantly examined in light of changes in the business world, and I feel this book provides a sound basis for reexamining the concept of branding in today’s business environment. Businesses today are attempting to market products to the most well-informed consumers of all time. Thanks to the Internet: consumers have the opportunity to easily read reviews and comments about products and services which subsequently reduces reliance on brand name or brand reputation as an indicator of quality. I found the range of topics to be complete, and I was pleased to see a chapter on retail related aspects of branding as well as a chapters related to international branding and branding in the context of mergers and acquisitions. I think The Future of Branding would be a good choice to use as a reader in both MBA-level branding courses and undergraduate-level marketing courses. The range of topics covered by the book should provide ample material for class discussions particularly in graduate-level courses.