Brands are important to organizational success and to its value. Research has found that on the average over 80 percent of firms' financial value is intangible, and brand equity is a large component of this value. As examples, after well over a century Coca Cola brand value is US$67 billion while in less than two decades Google is US$29 billion. Not only for Coca Cola and Google but for any business, brand strategies are critical to build and sustain brand value. As de Chernatony, McDonald and Wallace state:
Branding is a powerful marketing concept that does not just focus on one element of the marketing mix, but represents the result of a carefully conceived array of activities across the whole spectrum of the marketing mix, directed towards making the buyer recognise relevant added values that are unique when compared with competing products and services and which are difficult for competitors to emulate. … Strategic branding is concerned with identifying a vision for a brand and evaluating how to achieve the highest return on investment from brands, through analysing, formulating and implementing a strategy that best satisfies stakeholders (de Chernatony et al., 2011, pp. 28‐29).
In Creating Powerful Brands, de Chernatony, McDonald and Wallace, three international scholars and consultants, approach branding strategy with a unified vision from within and outside the organization. This is achieved by beginning with a highly integrated organization from not only across functional areas but also between managerial and executive levels. As they point out, “Ultimately brands succeed because the management identifies an attractive customer value proposition that engages everyone inside the organization. Through an integrated, coherent approach, a business delivery model is developed that capitalises on the core competencies of the organization” (de Chernatony et al., 2011, p. 355). Such value propositions and approaches may be composed and the integration of three components for stronger brands – functional (e.g. product or service performance), psychological (e.g. emotional aspects, customers' motivational needs), evaluative (e.g. how customers' judge the brand). Therefore, consumers purchase a brand for more reasons than just the functional capabilities (component). The Harley Davidson owner evaluates the purchase by more than just a high performance bike but also the value‐added psychological aspects, e.g. personality, social values, that provides Harley a sustainable competitive advantage.
The book is very interesting, lively and inspiring to read. It is well organized in presenting and analyzing branding concepts. The real strength is the integration within and between chapters. There are three parts of the book. Part 1 is the foundation of brand management. Chapter 1 is an overview of the book, current marketing approaches and best practices, and the role and importance of brands to organizations. Chapter 2 presents the branding process and brand planning, and the value of brands to manufacturers, distributors and buyers. This chapter is highly effective in introducing and leading to branding areas and concepts covered in Part 2.
Part 2 is brand management in different sectors, e.g. consumers, business markets, service brands, retailers/distributors and brands on the Internet. This part is the “heart” of the book. Chapters 3 and 4 address the consumer behavior aspects towards brands. In chapter 3, the roles of consumers’ dissonance, involvement and perceptions as influences on brand choice are discussed. Furthermore, the consumers' social and psychological needs are analyzed in chapter 4. The authors argue that successful, sustainable brands must be more than functional but also must have added values that are appropriate to specific target market(s), e.g. brand symbolism, personality, to meet those consumer needs. On the other hand, business market buyers (chapter 5) differ from those in consumer markets. Brand values in business markets are a result of certain sources, e.g. the company (e.g. image), product (e.g. reliable), distribution (e.g. dependable), support services (e.g. expertise), and should provide the needed methods to create long‐term relationships (or partnerships). The authors conclude that while business buyers evaluate purchases rationally, emotional aspects also are influences on their decisions.
Services sector has grown to be the major component of the economy, and do to its charactertics, e.g. intangibility, heterogeneity, services branding is highly challenging. In chapter 6, de Chernatony and his colleagues present a nine‐step process (model) to build and sustain services brands. Retailer branding issues, e.g. private versus manufacturer brands, are discussed in chapter 7. The chapter includes the store as a brand (e.g. image), the importance of retailer‐manufacturer collaboration, product category management and efficient consumer response (ECR). With the huge increase of consumer Internet use, firms have opportunities to offer and grow brands via this non‐store channel. As the authors point out, successful internet‐offered brands, e.g. Amazon, require greater customer interaction, enhanced experiences and rapid responses. Chapter 8 discusses the opportunities for online brand experience offers, e.g. website appearance, navigation, and the threats for Internet branding, e.g. comparison shopping, pricing.
While Part 2 is the “heart” of the book, Part 3 is the “soul.” Part 3 is “winning the brands battle,” e.g. competitors, creating added values, brand planning and evaluation. Chapter 9 focuses on competitors and the methods to position and sustain brands. Two approaches to gain competitive advantage are cost‐driven and value‐added. However, these are on the ends of a continuum and successful strategy may be likely some combination of the two, not necessarily one or the other. Chapter 10 continues and further develops added values. As the authors state, “By recognizing that buyers in consumer, service and industrial markets regard products and services as clusters of value satisfactions, marketers can start to differentiate their brands by developing relevant added values” (2011, p. 382). These added values can be planned, developed and evolve through generic, expected, augmented and potential levels, or phases. Hence, planning and strategy development are critical to brand success and sustainability. In chapter 11, the authors use a well‐developed brand planning model with a 2×2 matrix. One dimension is functionality, or consumers' rational evaluation, e.g. satisfying utilitarian needs. The second dimension is representationality, or consumers' emotional evaluation, e.g. personality. Each has a high or low degree level of the dimension. Using qualitative marketing research methods from the consumers' responses in a target market, results can identify the dimensions and levels for the brand and its competitors. This provides an understanding of the brands that can lead to how resources can best be allocated (brand planning and strategy). Chapter 12 discusses methods to evaluate brands (brand equity). One of the methods is a causal model (relationship) of brand attributes and brand strength influence on brand value. However, such methods have many challenges to determine value of brands.
This book is in its fourth edition, and has been substantially changed and provides the most current approach to branding and brand management. It is extremely well written and useful to both branding (and marketing) professionals and for upper‐level undergraduate and graduate students. For example, at the end of each chapter there is Marketing Action Checklist exercises for professionals to assess and evaluate their brands as applicable to the content topics of that chapter. On the other hand, following that exercise section is Student Based Enquiry exercises for students to research and complete (active learning opportunities). In addition, a Further Reading section includes extensive informational sources for more in‐depth understanding of each chapter's topics. This is of great benefit to the professionals and students as well as scholars.
