Advanced Brand Management -- 3rd Edition

Building and activating a powerful brand strategy

Paul Temporal

• Publisher: Harriman House
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780857195906
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Comunicazione aziendale
• Index: Business

Brands have never been more important than they are today.As Paul Temporal explains in this fully revised and updated third edition of his classic bestseller, the challenges of the business world are greater now than ever before. Brand managers have to cope with a broader range of variables and pressures from the marketplace and consumers. The lifeline of a strong brand can mean the difference between success and failure, or survival and extinction, in this turbulent environment.But what constitutes a strong brand? How should it be developed and managed? How do you activate and manage a winning brand strategy? Advanced Brand Management is the indispensable guide that provides all the answers.Paul Temporal addresses every issue related to brand management in the 21st century, providing the background theory and illustrating this with thoughtful case studies from across the business world.In this third edition, all chapters have been updated, and a completely new chapter is included on the growth of the digital world and the use of the Internet. Throughout, there is an increased emphasis on brand strategy and updates to case studies, with entirely new cases being added.If you want to make your own branding a success, you can't afford to be without Advanced Brand Management.

Preface

It has been eight years since the second edition of Advanced Brand Management was published, and many things have changed during that time which impact on the work of brand managers. While their role remains the same, brand managers now have to cope with a broader range of variables and pressures from the marketplace and consumers. The dynamic changes we have seen in world markets over the past decade have been especially challenging for brand managers. They include:

• the pursuit of speed, agility, and innovation are now seen as areas of strategic competitive advantage in a world characterized by a faster pace of change;
• the growth of the digital world and increased use of the Internet in building brands;
• greater emphasis on the projection of brand personality as a means of differentiation;
• the spread of branding in business-to-business markets and the public sector;
• the continued brand architecture trend away from product branding toward corporate branding;
• increased pressure from consumers on organizations to adopt better ethical branding and corporate social responsibility practices;
• the adoption of internal branding and employee engagement to enhance the customer experience and attract and retain talent; and
• an increased number of mergers, acquisitions, and alliances.

To illustrate these changes, I have made many adjustments to both the text and the case studies in this new book. All the chapters have been updated, and a completely new chapter is included on the growth of the digital world and the use of the Internet. There is an increased emphasis on brand strategy and an update to some cases, with entirely new cases being added as well.

Overall, the book has remained steadfast in its philosophy of, and approach to, brand management, but it now reflects the new challenges and opportunities facing practitioners in this highly exciting field.

As I complete this book the business world has changed again in a fairly positive way. Gone is the global recession, to be replaced with astonishing developments in the world of technology and innovation, bringing both opportunities and challenges. To survive in this fast-changing world it is vitally important that brand strategists apply their skills with even more vigor and discipline.

I hope you enjoy reading this book and take away some ideas to put into practice.

Paul Temporal Oxford 2019

Part 1: Introduction

Chapter 1: Branding in a Changing World

Brands have never been more important than they are today. The accelerating rate of turbulent change, the volatility of economies and markets, the relentless progress of technologies and innovations, and increasing market fragmentation, have caused the destruction of many companies and their products that have failed to develop the lifeline of a strong brand. Though we are not very far into the 21st century, already markets are littered with failures, physical and virtual, that could have survived had strong branding been in place.

Seven world market trends

The significant elements of change encountered over the last three decades can be categorized into seven world market trends that affect today’s businesses. These are:

1. The breakdown of market boundaries
2. Globalization and the development of global brands
3. Increasing market fragmentation
4. Product diversity and shorter life cycles
5. Greater customer sophistication
6. The digital world
7. Economic instability and market volatility

1. The breakdown of market boundaries

Traditionally, markets and sectors have been to some extent self-contained, but the advent of new technologies has allowed many companies to move into markets and sectors that were previously unknown and inaccessible. Industry crossovers are no longer unusual. For example, IT companies are now developing driverless cars.

Another contributory factor to the breakdown of market boundaries is deregulation, where international legislation has hurried this process along, for instance, with the ASEAN Free Trade Area.

A third cause for the erosion of market boundaries is the increase in the number of strategic alliances, which continue to prove attractive to companies, offering them global reach and access to new and distant markets.

2. Globalization and the development of global brands

Globalization is both a boardroom buzzword and a commercial reality as more companies seek to achieve a worldwide presence. One influential factor here has been the standardization of buying patterns, with people in most countries inclined toward buying similar products and services. Travel to any major city and you will see familiar fashion goods, fast-food outlets, motor vehicles, mobile phones, financial services, and so on. This makes it easier for firms to produce and market generic products and services that deliver volume sales at a lower cost base. There is no doubt that this phenomenon has been a catalyst in the development of global brand strategies.

3. Increasing market fragmentation

Having said there is a trend toward increasing standardization of buying patterns, it seems contradictory to now say that markets are becoming more fragmented. However, within broad markets, there is an increasing number of customer groups that identify themselves by their distinctive needs and wants. So it is true to say that although consumers generally tend to buy similar generic products and services, they are demanding that these be tailored to their specific requirements. Companies have reacted to this by shifting their stance from mass marketing to mass customization.

4. Product diversity and shorter life cycles

One of the reactions to greater competition fueled by the above factors is product development and innovation, which have been made easier by the speed of technological advances and their availability. This, coupled with the demand for more customized products, has resulted in product proliferation, so much so that customers are sometimes bewildered by the wide range of choices on offer. A consequent challenge is the increased difficulty to produce a product or service that is enduringly different. To use marketing jargon, unique selling propositions (USPs) are hard to find and sustain. While technological advances spur further innovation and become more freely available to everyone, leadership in product innovation is more difficult to achieve but easier to emulate and, therefore, short-lived.

The rate of technological change is staggering. In some categories, product life cycles have been shortened to a matter of weeks instead of years, as is the case with mobile technology. As a result, companies are caught in a trap. On the one hand, they cannot afford to lag behind in the race for new product development, and on the other, to keep ahead in the race, they have to invest heavily in technology research and development with its built-in obsolescence, and thus aim to gain mandatory rapid returns at the same time.

5. Greater customer sophistication

Nowadays, people are better educated, possess greater spending power (often fueled by credit)...