Remember the company that branded themselves medium-ly? Of course you don't. You remember brands you love, and brands you hate. And that's it. A brand is not predicated on a logo, not on marketing strategy or even advertising placement. True, digital brand strategy begins and ends with an emotional connection. DEFINITION "Brand Dominance" (n.) When such a strong emotional connection is created, that not only does an audience refer their peers, but also rallies behind the brand in pursuit of the brand's own growth. This book was born from a decade of the author's experience running ad agencies, executing revolutionary identity designs for 100's of digital entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies, and the trials and tribulations developing and growing his own personal brand and social audience. There were plenty of ups and even more downs...but always a lesson. Those lessons are shared in this book and woven to create a comprehensive guide on the do's and don'ts growing a digital audience and creating a "Disruptive Social Brand".
Communities Dominate Brands: Business and marketing challenges for the 21st century is a book about how the new phenomenon of digitally connected communities are emerging as a force to counterbalance the power of the big brands and advertising. The book explores the problems faced by branding, marketing and advertising facing multiple radical changes in this decade. Communities Dominate Brands discusses how disruptive effects of digitalisation and connectedness introduce threats and opportunities. The authors compellingly illustrate how modern consumers are forming communities and peer-groups to pool their power resulting in a dramatic revolution of how businesses interact with their customers. The book provides practical guidance of how to move from obsolete interruptive advertising to interactive engagement marketing and community based communications, with dozens of real business examples from around the world. Communities Dominate Brands addresses its topic from a marketing (including advertising and branding) perspective and maintains a rigorous focus on business and profit dimensions of the issues involved.The book discusses such recent phenomena as blogging, virtual environments, mobile phone based swarming and massively multiplayer games. The book introduces a new generation of consumers called Generation-C (for Community). The book also discusses such new concepts as the Connected Age, Reachability, the Four C's, Alpha Users, and introduces Communities as an unavoidable new element into the traditional communication model. Combining the digital trends, modern management theories, and emerging new customer behaviour, Communities Dominate Brands arrives to its conclusion, that traditional marketing methods are increasingly ineffective and even becoming counterproductive. The power of the brands and the abuses by marketing have created a vacuum for a counterbalance, and digitally connected communities, the blogosphere, gamers, and especially the always-on connectedness of those on mobile phone networks, are emerging as the counterforce to redress the balance. The power of smart mobs and digitally enlightened communities will react rapidly to marketing excesses as the natural force balancing the power of the brands.The way a business can and must interact with the powerful new communities is through engagement marketing, by enticing the communities to interact with the brands. Communities Dominate Brands covers the major changes taking place in business and industry worldwide from leading digitally connected societies such as Finland, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, UK and the USA. The authors discuss the business relevance of such community related technologies and phenomena such as blogging, CANs, iPod, MMOGs, MVNOs, PVRs, Ringing Tones, SMS text messaging, swarming, VOD. This is the definitive business book on the impact of new technologies, not explaining how technology works, but showing what businesses need to do to make money in the new digitally converging environment. Communities Dominate Brands analyses early successes of engaging communities by global brands such as Adidas, Apple, Audi, BBC, Boeing, Coca Cola, eBay, Ford, Google, Guinness, Hush Puppies, Lonely Planet, MTV, Nokia, Orange, Philips, Red Bull, Sony, Tesco, Tony & Guy, Vodafone, etc.The lessons are amplified with insights from rough punishment by communities suffered by Hutchison/Three networks, Kryptonite locks, Mazda, the Philippines Government, etc. Fully indexed, impeccably researched with documented sources, offering over 50 current business examples and over a dozen case studies, Communities Dominate Brands is a hands-on practical business handbook on how to adjust marketing to deal with communities. With tools such as the Four C's and Reachability, the authors provide a competitive head-start to all who want to achieve customer satisfaction and return business in the 21st century.
Brand management is firmly established as a core business and marketing activity. The research evidence on how consumers react to branding, however, is in constant evolution globally. This short-form book provides a comprehensive overview of research evidence on several core branding topics whilst acting as a catalyst for advancing future research and informing business practice. The book fills a gap created by prior volumes on branding that, although well- illustrated and explained, have often approached the subject in somewhat uncritical manner. The book represents a timely compendium on popular topics in branding and aims to be a valuable addition to knowledge in branding. The book focuses on reviewing research in branding and brand management, and proposes areas for expanding research in the field. Recognising the diversity of research in branding, the authors of this book, as active branding researchers, attempt to discuss the limitations of current research and provide insights for future explorations. The book will be of interest and a resource for academic researchers, branding practitioners, business students and policymakers who view branding as an evidence-oriented discipline.
Across the globe, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft have accumulated power in ways that existing regulatory and intellectual frameworks struggle to comprehend. A consensus is emerging that the power of these new digital monopolies is unprecedented, and that it has important implications for journalism, politics, and society. It is increasingly clear that democratic societies require new legal and conceptual tools if they are to adequately understand, and if necessary check the economic might of these companies. Equally, that we need to better comprehend the ability of such firms to control personal data and to shape the flow of news, information, and public opinion. In this volume, Martin Moore and Damian Tambini draw together the world's leading researchers to examine the digital dominance of technologies platforms and look at the evidence behind the rising tide of criticism of the tech giants. In fifteen chapters, the authors examine the economic, political, and social impacts of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft, in order to understand the different facets of their power and how it is manifested. Digital Dominance is the first interdisciplinary volume on this topic, contributing to a conversation which is critical to maintaining the health of democracies across the world.
A new conceptual approach to marketing practice from the vice president at Ogilvy Mather Direct which describes how to build a new kind of brand loyalty that leads to old-fashioned brand growth and increased profits without incremental marketing investment. Demonstrates how to create a database of high-profit consumers and use it to generate a relationship-building direct marketing program.
This has long been the one book that students can rely on to get them thinking critically and strategically about branding. This new fourth edition is no exception. THE definitive introductory textbook for this crucial topic, it is highly illustrated and comes packed with over 50 brand-new, real examples of influential marketing campaigns. Bullets: • Summarises the latest thinking and best practice in the domain of branding • All new real marketing campaigns show how branding theories are implemented in practice • Brought right up to date with a clear European and UK focus Undergraduate business and marketing students studying brand management will find this an invaluable resource in their quest to understand how branding really works.
“B.J. Bueno and his team at The Cult Branding Company respect and understand what so many strategists miss: before we can be experts on product, sales, or the market, we must fi rst be experts on human nature. They have a proven track record of building healthy, sustainable businesses for some of the best brands in the world—using the very process outlined in this book.” —BERT JACOBS, chief executive optimist, The Life is good Company “B.J. Bueno yet again deftly captures the essence of what is required to build and sustain a great brand. If you want to attract and retain highly profi table “brand lovers” rather than stalk new customers, then carefully read this book. B.J. wisely outlines why this is vital and importantly, how to actually do it in today’s marketplace! —DARRYL “DC” COBBIN, president, Brand Positioning Doctors, and former VP of Marketing, 20th Century Fox “Customers First tells the truth. I got a shiver up my back reading this book: What if my competitors read this and follow B.J.’s advice? I don’t care what size business you run, you could and should do exactly as this book instructs. As I was reading, I kept thinking of ways to get my customers to tell me how to be better.” —DAVID RATNER, owner, Dave’s Soda and Pet City MASTER THE SCIENCE OF MARKET DOMINATION... Brand Lovers are the best of your best customers. They power Harley-Davidson to the top of the enthusiast motorcycle market; they’re the core of Apple’s dominant position in portable devices; and they’re the reason why no other premium grocery chain can take a bite out of Whole Foods’ market share. Customers First, by top branding strategist B.J. Bueno, shows how your business will achieve this level of extreme customer loyalty through Brand Modeling, the objective and scientific analysis of your organization’s performance across a wide range of situations. An accurate Brand Model will arm you with hard data to pinpoint and engage your brand’s most passionate customers—and give you an action plan for inspiring and empowering these Brand Lovers to be your most effective evangelists. Much more than a summary of who you are and what you do, a Brand Model maps your business’s DNA to help you build an unbeatable competitive advantage. Through examples of real-world success stories—among them, IKEA, Nike, Coca-Cola, apparel upstart The Life is good Company, Starbucks, and Southwest Airlines—and a detailed sample case study that shows effective Brand Modeling practices in action, Customers First delivers strategic insights and proven techniques for you to: Differentiate your products in ways that are meaningful to your best customers Drive growth by creating brand extensions that are a natural fit with your existing products Significantly improve marketing ROI by avoiding customers not interested in your brand Visually and verbally communicate brand values that resonate with your best customers Brand Modeling evolves the current state of marketing to a new level of sophistication. In Customers First, B.J. Bueno shows how to use this critical tool to eliminate guesswork from your marketing efforts and focus more clearly on understanding (and pleasing) your most valuable ally in the battle for market dominance: The Brand Lover. B.J. BUENO is founder and managing partner of The Cult Branding Company, the premiere Brand Modeling and consumer insight research firm. He is a board member of the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association and a member of the Chief Marketing Officers board for international retailers.
Antitrust and competition law is a fast moving area of law and the subject of extensive academic research. The aim of this volume is to select articles as tools for understanding how antitrust and competition law is applied to unilateral conduct which is harmful to the consumer and to the competitiveness of the market. The articles examine the meaning of dominance and monopolisation and show that although legal and economic rules have been developed to establish whether undertakings hold such strong market positions, it is often difficult to determine with certainty that the undertaking being investigated meets the threshold. The various debates on pricing and non-pricing conduct are also represented as are the conflicts that have arisen regarding the exercise of intellectual property rights by powerful undertakings, particularly in the context of the new economies. The volume includes scholarly articles published on both sides of the Atlantic and enables a greater understanding of the application of antitrust and competition law from the point of view of economics and politics.
This second edition of Brand Meaning lays out new territory for the understanding of how brands both acquire and provide meaning. The author draws on his experience with leading international companies to propose a compelling framework for the conscious and unconscious ways in which people connect with products and brands. Revised and updated, it contains contemporary as well as classic examples of brand meaning in practice from various countries, and expands on the theory, methods and applications of brand meaning. The book’s multidisciplinary approach and concise yet comprehensive content makes it an ideal supplemental reader for undergraduate, graduate, and MBA courses, as well as valuable reading for practitioners in the fields of marketing, advertising and consumer research. For more information, visit www.brandmeaning.com.
The unique ability of rock and roll to inspire fanatical support from its customers is undeniable; the loyalty showered upon the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Aerosmith, and others who create it, unmatched; and the lessons for corporate America, endless. In the past, business leaders have looked to the successes of other firms to guide their own strategies for increasing market share and capturing more consumer attention, spending, and loyalty. However, in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, managers are looking for ways to shake, rattle, and roll corporate America’s traditional marketing and branding mindset. In Brands That Rock, Roger Blackwell and Tina Stephan, co-authors of best-selling Customers Rule! and From Mind To Market, take readers behind the music to uncover how businesses can create brands that become adopted by culture and capture a long-term position in the marketplace. Brands That Rock takes a unique, behind-the-music look at how businesses can increase brand awareness, customer loyalty, and profits by implementing some of the same strategies that legendary bands have used to transform customers into fan and create deep, emotional connections with them. Aerosmith and Madonna offer insight into how to evolve a brand to remain relevant in the marketplace without alienating current fans, while the Rolling Stones and KISS prove that successful execution at all levels of the brand experience are key to capturing long-term loyalty. Stephan and Blackwell also examine how businesses, from Victoria’s Secret and Wal-Mart to Cadillac and Kraft, have implemented ‘rock and roll strategies’ to become adopted by culture and secure fans in their own right. Filled with fun anecdotes and interviews from industry insiders, Brands That Rock will relate to managers who grew up with classic rock, showing them how build iconic brands, and delight fans decade after decade. Roger D. Blackwell (Columbus, OH) is President of Roger Blackwell Associates, a consulting firm that works with Fortune 500 companies in the areas of consumer trends, strategy, e-commerce, and global business. A highly sought-after speaker, he is also Professor of Marketing at the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. Tina Stephan (Columbus, OH and New York, NY) is Vice President of Roger Blackwell Associates. Together, they have collaborated on eight books, including Customers Rule! and From Mind to Market, and numerous articles and research projects.
