BRAND MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT

“Brands and Branding”

By Rita Clifton & John Simmons
(Book Review)

Submitted to:
Prof. Atul Tandon

Submitted by:
Anurag Singh Rathour
MCM 2009023
JICM
 INTRODUCTION

For those who are looking for wide reading on branding in a single volume,
―Brands and Branding‖, edited by Rita Clifton and John Simmons is a good
solution. Compiled by world renowned magazine, The Economist, the publication
brings together a total of seventeen branding experts who cover issues from the
definition of brands to the future of brands and everything in between. In contrast
to Naomi Klein‘s ―No Logo‖ the entire book, despite being written by several
contributors, has a consistent convincing and authoritative style.

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 starts from the very basics by
discussing the definition of branding, looking at its origins, and then examining the
importance of branding both from social and financial stand points. The Chapter
titled ―What Makes a Brand great‖ is rich with examples of successful brands.

Part 2 can easily qualify as the brand managers‘ bible. The section examines key
areas such as positioning and the management of brand value. The need for
alignment of all aspects of an organization to the brand, a call that has been getting
louder and louder is also echoed here. The final chapter in Part 2 looks at the legal
aspects of branding and the need to legally protect brands in the marketplace.

Part 3 has five chapters and not only examines future trends as seen by the various
experts but also highlights opportunities available for branding. The potential for
branding in South East Asia is examined is given a full chapter and so is the key
growth area of place branding. The final chapter of ―Brands and Branding‖
highlights future trends of brands. While the book is largely ―pro logo‖ the final
sentence of the book comes with a caveat: ―Brands will continue to succeed if they
deserve it, and, since the future of brands is the future of sustainable business and
fundamental to developments in society, it is important to us all to see that they
do.‖
 PART-1 THE CASE FOR BRANDS

CHAPTER-1: WHAT IS A BRAND?

The word BRAND comes from the Old Norse brandr, meaning to burn, and
from these origins made its way into Anglo-Saxon.
It was of course by burning that early man stamped ownership on his
livestock, and with the development of trade buyers would use brands as a
means of distinguishing between the cattle of one farmer and another. A
farmer with a particularly good reputation for the quality of his animals
would find his brand much sought after, while the brands of farmers with a
lesser reputation were to be avoided or treated with caution. Thus the utility
of brands as a guide to choice was established, a role that has remained
unchanged to the present day.
The dictionary definitions suggest that brands are intrinsically striking and
that their role is to create an indelible impression.
The visual distinctiveness of s brand may be a combination of any of the
following: name, letters, a symbol, a signature, a shape, a slogan, a color, a
particular typeface. But the name is the most important element of the brand
as its use in language provides a universal reference point. All other
elements can change over time, but the brand name should be like Caesar:
―as constant as the northern star‖.

GUIDELINES FOR GOOD BRAND MANAGEMENT:

Some of the guidelines given below are eternal truths that apply equally to
product, services and corporate brands, and some apply particularly to one
category of brand or another.

 PROTECT YOUR BRAND: Trade mark law offers provision for the
protection of your brand and corporate names, your logo and colors,
 the shape of your packaging ,smells, and the advertising jingle you
use.
 HONOUR YOUR STAKEHOLDERS: Your customers expect
attractive, well-differentiated products and services that will live up to
their expectations and are well priced. Your employees want to work
for a company with a compelling business idea,where they feel
engaged and where they can make a difference.
 TREAT YOUR BRAND AS AN INVESTMENT, NOT A COST:
Brands are among the most important assets that a business can own,
and strong brands can ensure business continuity in times of
difficulty. Brands must remain relevant to their customers,
contemporary and appealing. This means that sufficient investment
must be made in advertising and marketing as well as in new product
development.
 EXPLOIT THE FINANCIAL POTENTIAL OF YOUR BRAND: As
well as seeking ways to extend the brand through new product
development, companies should look at opportunities to exploit the
equity in their brands through co-branding, licensing and franchising.
Co-branding can be a highly cost-effective way of entering new
markets and geographical areas; the art is in finding a suitably
compatible partner.
 UNDERSTAND THAT SUCCESSFUL BRAND MANAGEMENT
NOWADAYS IS A COMPLEX TASK:
It requires skills not normally associated with the traditional
marketing function. The ability to brief market-research companies,
advertising agencies and designers, to liaise with the sales and
distribution people and to survive the odd skirmish with the ―bean-
counters‖ is no longer enough. If the brand is the corporation, the
brand manager needs to understand not just the subtle art of corporate
communications but the infinitely more demanding role of stakeholder
accountability.
CHAPTER-4: BRAND VALUATION:
If this business were split up, I would give you the land and bricks and mortar,

And I would take the brands and trademarks, and I would fare better than you.

John Stuart, Chairman of QUAKER (ca.1900)

The evaluation of profitability and performance of business focuses on indicators

such as return on investment, assets or equity that exclude intangibles from the
denominator. Measures of price relatives also exclude the value of intangible assets
as these are absent from accounting book values. This does not means that
management failed to recognize the importance of intangibles.

BRANDS ON BALANCE SHEET: The wave of brand acquisitions in the late

1980s resulted in large amounts of goodwill that most accounting standards could
not deal with in an economically sensible way. Accounting practice for so called
goodwill did not deal with the increasing importance of intangible assets, with the
result that companies were penalized for making what they believed to be value-
enhancing acquisitions. They either had to suffer massive amortization charges on
their profit and loss accounts (income statements), or they had to write off the
amount to reserves in many cases ended up with a lower asset base than before the
acquisition.

Today, many companies including LVMH, L‘oreal, Gucci, Prada and PPR have
recognized acquired brands on their balance sheet recognition of their brands as an
investor-relations tool by providing historic brand values and using brand value as
a financial performance indicator.

THE SOCIAL VALUE OF BRANDS: The economic value of brands to their

owners is now widely accepted, but their social value is less clear. Do brands
create value for anyone other than their owners, and is the value they create at the
expense of society at large? The ubiquity of global mega-brands has made
branding the focus of discontent for many people around the world.

APPROACHES TO BRAND VALUATION: financial values have to some extent

always been attached and to other intangible assets, but it was only in the late
1980s that valuation approaches were established that could fairly claim to
understand and assess the specific value of brands. The idea of putting a separate
value on brands is now widely accepted. For those concerned with accounting,
transfer pricing and licensing agreements, mergers and acquisitions and value
based management, brand valuation plays a key role in business today.

There are 2 types of approaches:

1. Research based brand equity evaluations

2. Purely financially driven approaches.

 Cost based approach
 Comparables
 Premium price
 Economic use

As global competition becomes tougher and many competitive advantages, such

as technology, become more short-lived, the brands contribution to shareholder
value will increase. The brand is one of the few assets that can provide long-term
competitive advantage.

Despite the commercial importance of brands, the management of them still lags
behind that of their tangible counterparts. Even though measurement has become
the mantra of modern management, it is astonishing how few agreed systems and
processes exist to manage the brand asset. When it comes to managing and
measuring factory output the choice of measures is staggering, as are the
investments in sophisticated computer systems that measures and analyse every
detail of the manufacturing process. The same is true for financial controlling. But
, strangely, this cannot be said for the management of the brand asset. Although
many brand measures are available, few can link the brand to long-term financial
value creation.

Overall there is an increasing need for brand valuation from both a management
and transactional point of view. This may well become the most important brand
management tool in the future.
CHAPTER-3: THE SOCIAL VALUE OF BRANDS:
The fact that brands provide economic value to their corporate owners is widely
accepted. What is less clearly understood is the social value provided by brands.
Do brands create value for anyone other than their owners? Is the value that they
create at the expense of society at large? The ubiquity of global megabrands has
made branding the focus of discontent for vocal consumer groups around the
world. They see a direct link between brands and such issues as the exploitation of
workers in developing countries and the homogenization of cultures around the
world. Furthermore, brands are accused of stifling competition and limiting the
virtues of a capitalist system by encouraging monopoly and limiting consumer
choice.

The result is a distorted perception of brands that is often contrary to reality. A

closer look at the topic reveals that brands create substantial social value and that
without brands the world would be both socially and economically a poorer place.
In order to assess this social value it is important to define what we mean. This
article addresses the subject from three perspectives - the value that brands create
for society as a whole, for the individuals that constitute society, and finally for
their corporate brand owners.

For society as a whole the social value of brands materializes in increased

competition, improved product performance and the social responsibility of
corporations. For the individuals within society, the social value lies in consumer
benefits, freedom of choice and freedom of self-expression. For corporate owners
the benefit lies in the contribution to shareholder value.

SOCIAL BRANDS:

Social (or Cause Based) Brands represent a third stage of capitalism that combines
market based behavior and modern corporate branding techniques with cause
marketing. This article and slide presentation represents an overview and
introduction to a lengthier proposal calling for the creation of a licensing platform
for social or cause based brands that are similar to the licensing schemes utilized
by major corporations, celebrity endorsers, professional and university athletics.
CHAPTER-4: WHAT MAKES BRAND GREAT

In a global economy subject to changing market dynamics and heightened

competition, the role of brands has never been greater. They serve as a route

map for purchasing behavior and, when managed properly, generally accrue
significant value to their owners. But how do you evaluate a brand and

evaluate what makes it special? This chapter examines what makes brands great,

but first it is helpful to briefly review valuation and evaluation approaches. For
years, most brand owners relied on marketing-oriented measures such as awareness
and esteem. Today they use more innovative and financially driven techniques

to better quantify the value that brands represent. These new techniques draw from
a mix of traditional business valuation models and economic tools that measure
brand performance in terms of monetary quantification, historical benchmarking,
competitive assessment and return-on-investment analyses. This has enabled
companies to evaluate their brands more rigorously and to establish criteria with
which to govern their development in the future.

 The three attributes of the great brands:

1. Built from a great idea
2. Holds true to core purpose and values
3. Employs brand as the central organizing principle

 Three observations of the great brands:

1. Largely American
2. Predominantly commodity businesses and industries
3. Represent clear choices

 The five great practices of the great brands

1. Continually deliver on the brand promise
2. Possess superior products, services and technologies
3. Own a distinct position and deliver a unique customer experience
4. Focus on ―internal‖ branding
5. Improve and innovate
 PART-2: BEST PRACTICE IN BRANDING

CHAPTER-5: BRAND POSITIONING

Understanding Positioning

• Positioning is:
- Not what you do to a product–it‘s what you do to the prospect‘s mind to
condition how he/she thinks about the product
- what you do to ―get heard.‖
- the process of coping with the mental position that a larger, more established
competitor occupies.
- a tool to cope with information overload (and anxiety).
- Positioning is a cumulative concept; successful positioning requires consistency –
have to hang in there year after year if the positioning seems to be working.
- not creating something new and different, but manipulating what‘s already in the
mind –to retie connections that already exist.
• Positioning often involves cosmetic changes done to secure a worthwhile position
in the prospect‘s mind, i.e. name, price, packaging, etc.
• Ad Agencies spend enormous amounts of time and research looking for positions
or holes in the marketplace.
• Anyone can use positioning strategy to win. If you don‘t understand and use the
principles of positioning, your competitors undoubtedly will.
• Today‘s marketplace is no longer responsive to past strategies – too many
companies and ―marketing noise.‖
• A person is capable of receiving only a limited amount of sensation. Beyond a
certain point, the brain goes blank and refuses to function normally. Must
oversimplify the message. Less is more. To cope with complexity, people have
learned to simplify almost everything.
• May be cynical to accept the premise that the sender is wrong and the receiver is
right. But you really have no other choice – not if you want to get your message
accepted by another human mind.
• By focusing on the customer rather than the product....you learn principles and
concepts that can greatly increase your communication effectiveness.
You know that you and your company are special, but your potential customers
won't know unless you tell them. And they won't care unless they can see how your
special angle directly makes their lives easier. It's more than just showing the
features of your products; you've got to explain the benefits--exactly how that
product or service will relieve an operational headache, fulfill a yearning, or in
some other fashion satisfy a need that the customer has. It's best to slice out
specific benefits that will distinguish your products or services in the market.
Differentiation is the collection of differences in features and benefits versus
competitive products. The key is to determine how important these collective
differences are to buyers and then communicate them to potential buyers through
your entire arsenal of marketing tools, from distribution to packaging.

CHAPTER-6: BRAND EXPIERIENCE

In an increasingly crowded market place, there are certain companies that really
stand out from their competitors - companies like Tesco, PizzaExpress,
Amazon.com, Virgin, easyGroup, First Direct, Harley Davidson, Krispy Kreme
and Pret A Manger. Uncommon Practice -- People who deliver a
great brand experience, a new book by Interbrand and Forum, demonstrates,
through interviews with key executives from these and other leading companies,
how they provide remarkable experiences for their customers and staff alike. The
premise behind Uncommon Practice is that that this success stems from their
distinctive cultures uniquely developed to meet the needs of customers. The
companies featured have defied conventional wisdom and broken the traditional
rules of management to engender exceptional levels of commitment from their
people, who,united behind a clear brand vision, translate their belief in the
company into exceptional customer service. Editors Andy Milligan and Shaun
Smith have taken care to let the voice of the organisation speak for itself.
Uncommon Practice is not a 'how to!' book, and does not provide a 'quick-fix' list
of invariable rules for success.The editors do however provide insight into the core
principles and practices that the leading companies featured share but which are
uncommon in many organisations today.

The media landscape is constantly evolving and increasing in complexity:

fragmentation of traditional media and growing influence of new media means that
car manufacturers as most of global advertisers around the world are paying more
attention (and attributing a larger share of their resources) to non-traditional
contact points such as events or dealerships in order to communicate
effectively. Confronted with these issues, marketing has never been
in greater need of accountability to deliver accurate answers to three key questions:
• Which contacts to use to get the best outcome of communication activities.
• How to allocate the (always limited) available resources?
• How to optimize the contact mix.
Answering these questions is far from obvious because:

• The market research industry has always addressed these types of issues in a very
fragmented and heterogeneous way making it difficult to define the ―optimal‖
strategy for the brand (i.e. the way these issues are managed within each
organization).
• Today‘s media planning tools focus mainly on traditional media, which represent
the most important part of the communication budget not true nowadays below the
line = 60% of marketing communications spends andonly a subset of the
communication channels that consumers use and are influenced by.

CHAPTER-7: VISUAL AND VERBAL IDENTITY

The old adage still rings true: a picture is worth a thousand words. In order to
capitalize on this axiom, marketers often spend an enormous amount of time and
money creating visual identities that paint a consistent picture of their company or
products. But alone, logos, color palettes and design schemes cannot tell a
complete story. When building effective brands, we must also consider
the words our audiences hear, read, and repeat as they interact with our company
and their colleagues. The verbal identity, the linguistic counterpart to the visual
identity, is frequently overlooked in brand development. But ignore it at your own
peril, because a word is often worth a thousand pictures.

The most important reason to create a visual and verbal identity is consistency. A
company should look and sound the same whether someone is visiting its web site,
reading its product data sheet or participating in a technical training session. But
this level of consistency cannot be achieved by creating visual and verbal identities
separately, nor can they be constructed in an ad-hoc manner. In order to drive
uniformity throughout all of a company‘s touch points, the verbal and visual
identities must be integrated, and their creation must follow a structured process
that helps focus creativity.
CHAPTER-8: BRAND COMMUNICATIONS

Integrated Brand Communications engages the highest levels of management

because it brings strategy, finance and marketing communications together to
manage the brand to optimize its value. It serves as a catalyst for uniting executive,
financial and marketing management and ultimately helps to remove internal
barriers that may have prevented an integrated communications effort.
Integrated Brand Communications: The Process The primary value of Integrated
Brand Communications is that it provides management with a
comprehensive process for leveraging brands to sustain and grow the business. To
begin shaping an Integrated Brand Communications program, we need to adopt a
strategic approach that is focused on building stronger connections with
clients or consumers.
How can your brand achieve strong Power in
the Mind?
Communication recognises that emotion, not rational thought, is the gatekeeper to
consumer behaviour. Brands must satisfy consumer needs, not just at a functional
level but at a deeper emotive level. The key to developing powerful and profitable
brands lies therefore in the ability to truly understand consumer needs and align
your brand with these needs more strongly than any of your competitors. To
achieve this, it works with clients to develop and implement brand strategies
shown to deliver long term brand equity and competitive advantage.
Building a brand in any country requires more than a series of tactical initiatives to
create awareness and ‗get the name out there‘. It takes a meticulously planned and
integrated strategy that incorporates the participation of numerous stakeholders and
initiatives, both internal and external. Internally to ensure the whole organisation is
on brand and externally to ensure communications and content resonates with
target markets and are communicated via relevant channels. There‘s more but for
the purpose of this article that‘s enough for now.
And what if the brand is to penetrate other markets? There was a time when all it
took to do this was a continuation of the positioning tactics carried out in the home
country, perhaps with a few language changes in print media and perhaps some
dubbing of TV commercials (TVCs). An over simplification perhaps, but
essentially correct.
But as we all know, the world is very different today. Building western brands in
Asia To build a Western brand in Asia today, as many international brands are
finding out the hard way, takes an even more robust and integrated brand strategy
that has at its core organisational excellence. Only once has that strategy been
developed can the brand strategy be executed. And part of the brand strategy, a
small but critical part, is the communications campaign.
This is particularly true of the automotive industry that has seen a number of well
known European and other Western brands find it hard to repeat the successes at
home in new Asian markets. There are other issues such as high duties etc but
many European brands perform below expectations, despite large marketing
budgets.

CHAPTER-9: THE PUBLIC RELATION PERSPECTIVE ON

BRANDING

 NO CREDIBLITY= NO BRAND

Yet one can go much further than this. I would argue that the role of PR was
never really to build a brand in the first place. Rather, it is to do no harm to it.
PR is inherently a tool for building a great reputation, as PRinfluences.au writes
in ―A strong corporate reputation is increasingly a PR responsibility.‖: ―Image
can….be generated through an advertising campaign or a corporate document
or the look of an organization‘s premises….[while] reputation is….built
through developing relationships and what an organization does. It is largely
what others say about you.‖ One implication is that PR grows the reputation to
protect the brand.Just to clarify: Reputation—which can loosely be defined as
trustworthiness—is not brand. Brand is image, while reputation is reality. What
this means is that everybody knows that brand is fake, or has elements of
fakery, while reputation is closer to reality. Therefore, brand is best conveyed
by a consistent sales/marketing/advertising ―core message,‖ while reputation is
best conveyed by transparency.Now transparency, which is the real job of a
public relations professional (though they may not be able to express it in
practice), means to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the
 organization, and in so doing to portray the organization as trustworthy.
Therefore PR is actually the antithesis of branding, which is to tell a very
partial, even propagandistic, truth. Really, branding is pure selling, aimed at
owning a single idea in the audience‘s mind. No matter how they are written up
in The Wall Street Journal orFortune, the brands of Nike, Disney, Starbucks,
and Coca-Cola have little to do with the real world inside their organizations,
and much to do with the image they represent to the public.

CHAPTER-10: BRAND PROTECTION

Ensuring you stand head and shoulders above the competition and your
distinctiveness is not compromised, is vital for those businesses whose brand is one
of their major assets. The protection, defense and exploitation of a brand,
nationally or globally, is key to business success.

 TRADEMARKS:
A trademark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business
organization or other legal entity to identify that
the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate
from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of
other entities. A trademark is designated by the following symbols:

 ™ (for an unregistered trade mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand
goods)
 ℠ (for an unregistered service mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand
services)
 ® (for a registered trademark)
A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a
combination of these elements. There is also a range of non-conventional
trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these standard categories, such
as those based on color, smell, or sound.
The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal
proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that
trademark. However, registration is not required.
 PART-3: THE FUTURE FOR BRANDS

CHAPTER-11: GLOBALIZATION & BRANDS

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people,

companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international
trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects
on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development
and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.

Globalization and the rise of multinational corporations and branding

A further, crucial aspect of globalization is the nature and power of multinational
corporations. Such companies now account for over 33 per cent of world output,
and 66 per cent of world trade (Gray 1999: 62). Significantly, something like a
quarter of world trade occurs within multinational corporations (op. cit). This last
point is well illustrated by the operations of car manufacturers who typically
source their components from plants situated in different countries. However, it is
important not to run away with the idea that the sort of globalization we have been
discussing involves multinationals turning, on any large scale, to transnationals:
International businesses are still largely confined to their home territory in terms of
their overall business activity; they remain heavily 'nationally embedded' and
continue to be multinational, rather than transnational, corporations. (Hirst and
Thompson 1996: 98).

While full globalization in this organizational sense may not have occurred on a
large scale, these large multinational corporations still have considerable economic
and cultural power.

Branding and globalization. The growth of multinationals and the globalization

of their impact is wrapped up with the rise of the brand.
The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multi-national
corporations over the last fifteen years can arguably be traced back to a single,
seemingly innocuous idea developed by management theorists in the mid-1980s:
that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to
products. (Klein 2001: 3)
As Naomi Klein (2001: 196) has suggested, 'brand builders are the new primary
producers in our so-called knowledge economy'. One of the key elements that
keeps companies as multinationals rather than transnationals is the extent to which
they look to 'outsource' products, components and services. The logic underlying
this runs something like the following:
.... corporations should not expend their finite resources on factories that will
demand physical upkeep, on machines that will corrode or on employees who will
certainly age and die. Instead, they should concentrate those resources in the
virtual brick and mortar used to build their brands
Nike, Levi, Coca Cola and other major companies spend huge sums of money in
promoting and sustaining their brands. One strategy is to try and establish
particular brands as an integral part of the way people understand, or would like to
see, themselves. As we have already seen with respect the operation of
multinationals this has had a particular impact on children and young people (and
education). There is an attempt 'to get them young'.
Significantly, the focus on brand rather than the inherent qualities of the product as
well as advantaging multinationals in terms of market development also has an
Achilles heel. Damage to the brand can do disproportionate harm to sales and
profitability. If a brand becomes associated with failure or disgrace (for example
where a sports star they use to advertise their brand is exposed as a drug-taker; or
where the brand becomes associated in the public's mind with the exploitation of
children - as for example has happened with some of the main trainer makers) then
it can face major problems in the marketplace.

CHAPTER-12: AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON

BRANDS: MARKETS AND MORALS:
s a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. Ideally, CSR
policy would function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business
would monitor and ensure its support to law, ethical standards, and
international norms. Consequently, business would embrace responsibility for the
impact of its activities on the environment, consumers, employees,
communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere.
Furthermore, CSR-focused businesses would proactively promote the public
interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily
eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality.
Essentially, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into
corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: people, planet,
profit.
The practice of CSR is much debated and criticized. Proponents argue that there is
a strong business case for CSR, in that corporations benefit in multiple ways by
operating with a perspective broader and longer than their own immediate, short-
term profits. Critics argue that CSR distracts from the fundamental economic role
of businesses; others argue that it is nothing more than superficial window-
dressing; others yet argue that it is an attempt to pre-empt the role of governments
as a watchdog over powerful multinational corporations. Corporate Social
Responsibility has been redefined throughout the years. However, it essentially is
titled to aid to an organization's mission as well as a guide to what the company
stands for and will uphold to its consumers.
Development business ethics is one of the forms of applied ethics that examines
ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business
environment.
In the increasingly conscience-focused marketplaces of the 21st century, the
demand for more ethical business processes and actions (known as ethicism) is
increasing. Simultaneously, pressure is applied on industry to improve business
ethics through new public initiatives and laws (e.g. higher UK road tax for higher-
emission vehicles).
Business ethics can be both a normative and a descriptive discipline. As a
corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. In
academia, descriptive approaches are also taken. The range and quantity of
business ethical issues reflects the degree to which business is perceived to be at
odds with non-economic social values. Historically, interest in business ethics
accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major
corporations and within academia. For example, today most major corporate
websites lay emphasis on commitment to promoting non-economic social values
under a variety of headings (e.g. ethics codes, social responsibility charters). In
some cases, corporations have re-branded their core values in the light of business
ethical considerations (e.g. BP's "beyond petroleum" environmental tilt).

CHAPTER-13 :BRANDING IN SOUTH EAST ASIA

"Establishing brand names that can pull markets is a strategy Asian firms ought to
consider seriously when aspiring to expand not only within the country but beyond
the national borders", says OPC lead consultant Dr Paul Tempora

THE ASIAN CHALLENGE: Consumers in Asia are much more powerful in the
'90s and this trend will continue into the next century. They have better knowledge,
greater curiosity, are more discriminating and exercise their right to choose more
carefully and ruthlessly than ever before.

Successful global companies recognise that the source of their prowess in world
markets is branding, and that investment in plant, technology and people is no
longer enough to guarantee long-term sustainable profits. Brand has become a vital
strategic issue for Asian companies. In increasingly turbulent markets, brands are a
key to customer loyalty, long-term survival and growth.

The challenge facing the young dynamic companies of Asia is to build powerful
global brands that will deliver long-term success for the nation, through good and
bad times.

CHAPTER-14 :BRANDING PLACES AND NATIONS

The reputations of countries (and, by extension, cities and regions)
function rather like the brand images of companies and products, and
they are equally crucial to the progress, prosperity and good management
of those places. This was the observation which led the author, a decade
ago, to coin the term ―nation brand‖.
However, his preferred term, ―competitive identity‖, better communicates
the fact that managing the reputations of places has more to do with
national and regional identity and the politics and economics of competitiveness
than with branding as it is usually understood in the commercial
sector. All places certainly have their brand images, but the extent to
which they can be branded is still, quite properly, the subject of intense
debate. Many governments, most consultants and even some scholars
persist in a naive and superficial interpretation of ―place branding‖ that
is nothing more than standard product promotion, public relations and
corporate identity, where the product just happens to be a country, a city
or a region rather than a bank or a running shoe.

CHAPTER-15: THE FUTURE OF BRANDS

The future of brands is inextricably linked to the future of business. In fact, the
future of brands is the future of business if it is to be about sustainable wealth
creation. Further, because of the interaction of brands with society, and since so
many socially influential brands are in the not-for-profit sector, the future of brands
is also inextricably linked to the future of society. Every brand needs a strong
creative idea to bring it to life through visual and verbal identity. This creative
process needs not only innovation and imagination, but also the courage and
conviction to carry it through.
At the other extreme, Watts Wacker, an American futurist, made it part of his
working philosophy to encourage organizations to develop ―500-year‖ plans. This
was meant to be symbolic rather than literal, but does rather stretch the point.
Steering a slightly less radical course either way, it was interesting to consider a
range of predictions for the year 2025, drawn from various think tanks and
futurists.3 These included market wars over ice on the moon; widespread designer
babies; a truly pregnant man; a derelict Silicon Valley, overtaken by technologies
such as quantum, optical and DNA computers; and one that would bring Rees‘s
doomsday scenario rather closer – widespread cyber-terrorism.

―Competing successfully in the 21st century will require more than just
outstanding product and quality functions. Intangibles such as corporate and brand
image will be crucial factors for achieving a competitive edge.‖ This concern for
other measures, and ways of measuring performance to ensure that everyone in a
company continues to build brand value rather than trading on it, is perhaps
something that more Western companies, particularly publicly quoted companies,
and the equity markets need to reflect on.