The masterbrand mandate: The management strategy that unifies companies and multiplies value

by Lynn B. Upshaw and Earl L. Taylor

(John Wiley & Sons, New York; 2000; ISBN 0 471 35659 X; 323pp; hardback; $29.95)

Back cover gushing endorsements should always be taken with a pinch of salt, especially with business books where those gushing the most profusely often turn out to be colleagues or business partners of the books authors. In the case of The Masterbrand Mandate, however, the glowing quotes elicited from such luminaries as David Aaker, Kevin Lane Keller and Charles Bryner (group chief executive, Interbrand Corporation) turn out to be fully justied. Companies the authors have worked with include Bayer Corporation, Visa International, Walt Disney, Bell Atlantic, 3Com Corporation, Bank America and so on. From this wealth of experience Upshaw and Taylor have developed the concept of the masterbrand. The centrality of branding is well stated in the books foreword:
One of the most enduring myths in global business today is that brands are solely a marketing tool. In the right hands, they are much more: a model for organizing, a structure for selling and prot generation, a focus for achieving, and a template of performance metrics. The very fact that the word brand rarely appears in most management texts is a good indication of the latest wave of marketing myopia that has led brands to be compartmentalized as specialized weapons of the marketing department.
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This view is in stark contrast to that espoused by Naomi Klein in the awed but brilliant No Logo;1 whereas Upshaw and Taylor advocate a more central role for branding within companies, Klein asserts that this has already happened and that the separation of branding and production has led to the shameful phenomenon of developing-world sweatshops slavishly producing branded products for developed-world markets. This has echoes of the perennial debate over the power of advertising, the paradox being that outside observers tend to overstate the sinister power of the advertising process while those working within the industry fret ceaselessly about whether they are having any impact at all. In oxymoronically titled chapter one, Built to Change, Upshaw and Taylor offer a denition of a masterbrand:
Leaders with foresight are now reshaping their entire organizations around companywide brands that are jointly owned by their people and their surrounding brand communities. We refer to these types of companies and their selling structures as masterbrands. Masterbrands are a companywide brand force, composed of a central set of associated meanings and benets, whose scope stretches from the companys strategic

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core, throughout its people and partners, enveloping its customers, and beyond to its outer perimeter of inuence. Masterbrands enact the continuously evolving positioning of a company among its competitors and the character that makes that company uniquely attractive to its constituencies. The masterbrand incorporates the company mission, vision, and values, but translates them into more concrete, leverageable forms.

Having dened what a masterbrand is, the authors go on to stress the importance of keeping the masterbrand fresh through regular reinvention, but without throwing the baby out with the bath water:
In todays net-driven economy, built to last means built to change. The challenge is to continuously reinvent your company while maintaining its focus and identity. The mandate is to manage your company as a masterbrand, sustaining and sustained by its unique brand community.

competitive entry which market latecomers have great difculty overcoming public masterbrand companies often enjoy more positive reviews from Wall Street masterbrands tend to achieve greater leverage in the marketplace and to build upon that leverage by incorporating innovation and change. Each of these claims is backed up with convincing examples, paving the way for a discussion of how to grow the masterbrand community and how to interactivate the brand.comm. The nature of the brand community is a major theme of this book, and many useful and interesting observations are made on the relevance of such communities to the health of the masterbrand. Brand communities are dened as strategically interdependent relationship clusters that form the spokes and wheel that surround and support a masterbrand. A brand community is peopled with the employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers and strategic partners, and other stakeholders, all of whom are sustained by a shared commitment to a pervasive masterbrand value proposition. In a global and Net-driven context, masterbrands can deliver a focused and enduring meaning across cyperspace and time, along with a resilient and evolving relevance to global, regional, and local brand communities. Each chapter of the book includes a closing section of two or three pages entitled Managing your mandate, in which practical steps are outlined for successful implementation of the issues in question. With the exception of one hideous
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The benets to be reaped by the exercise of such a masterbrand mandate are illustrated through success stories of the likes of IBM, Ikea and Wal-Mart. Six main benets are identied: customer relationship management comes more naturally to masterbrand organisations it is simpler and easier for employees to experience and rally around a masterbrand than it is for them to grapple with less concrete visions and values masterbrand companies forge stronger employee-customer relationships that provide sustainable momentum, which may very well grow exponentially masterbrand companies usually create sturdier barriers against

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neologism interglocalize the masterbrand the authors write clearly and uently, using branding jargon to illuminate rather than to mystify. Upshaw and Taylor conclude their excellent book with the following brand mantra: We fail to measure (and thus implicitly denigrate) allegedly softer, qualitative aspects of our performance. We do so at our peril, however, because it is precisely these subjective

customer perceptions especially inferences about our brand attitudes that drive customer loyalty and build brand communities. Keith Dinnie Book Review Editor
Reference
(1) Klein, N. (2001) No Logo, Flamingo, London.

Eve-olution: The eight truths of marketing to women

by Faith Popcorn and Lys Marigold
(Harper Collins Business, London; 2001; ISBN 0 00710715 3; 272pp; paperback; 8.99)
A classic marketing text, written almost 50 years ago, describes the function of marketing as that of seeing the whole business . . . from the customers point of view.1 A study of segmentation variables is often recommended as a way into the customers mind, and a way of identifying subgroups which respond in a similar fashion to the marketing mix. Despite this, the question of whether womens point of view differs systematically from that of men has been overlooked by marketing texts. This book attempts to ll the gap. Faith Popcorn, the Nostradamus of marketing according to Fortune magazine, provides a whirlwind tour of her consulting experience. Drawing on
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consumer and workplace trends, she predicts the eight formulae that will bring business success. Each is the subject of its own chapter, richly illustrated with business and other anecdotes. The driver behind the eight commandments is the increasing power of women as consumers. Women buy or inuence 80 per cent of all consumer purchases, 80 per cent of all vehicle purchases and 51 per cent of all consumer electronic purchases. Female-owned and female-run businesses generated US$3,6tn annually and employ 27.5 million people more than all the Fortune 500 companies in the USA, and as increasing numbers of women desert corporate life (women are leaving corporate

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America at twice the rate of men) the number of female-run businesses is set to increase. Womens collective buying power is now more than the economy of Japan, and Popcorn predicts that by 2005 40 per cent of all rms will be owned by women. All this adds up, in Popcorns vision, to women being the pioneers of consumerism. As such, she considers that women will set the trend for the way products are fashioned and marketed. The direction that women consumers take is the way all consumers are headed. So in what direction are the signs pointing? According to Popcorn, what women do not want is just as important as what they do want. They shun control, avoid inconvenience and value different things from men. The example of womens growing use of alternative healthcare (65 per cent of the market in herbal medicines are female) is explained in terms of a female tendency to avoid control and seek involvement (being involved in basic decisions makes a woman stay involved). Differences between women and men are frequently referred to. Women do not like to be marketed to in an aggressive way and are wary of impulsive responses. They are not impressed by expensive advertising, pick up subtleties invisible to men, and dislike lack of transparency. Popcorn is short on evidence half a page is taken up with biological sex differences and some of the messages cry out for more than anecdote. Some of the messages appear to be conventional wisdom repackaged. For example, her marketing to a

womans peripheral vision looks at times remarkably like merchandising coupled with strategic alliances. That said, there are some important messages. Women like to have some say in the way products evolve (Popcorn calls this co-parenting), like products from companies whose policies appeal to them, and like products that take account of their multiple lives and preferences. The reviewers own qualitative research2 continues to show sharp discrepancies between the visual preferences of men and women, and a book such as this even if it has some rough edges is to be welcomed. George Davies was recently hired by Marks and Spencer to design a range of clothes for 2535-year-old-women, and has been quoted as saying that I have studied the whole psychology of women.3 Popcorn extends the debate as to what women actually want. Marketers and managers from other disciplines can be expected to derive benet from this book. It has some rich anecdotes, and may inspire more than a few ideas.
References
(1) Drucker, P. F. (1954) The Practice of Marketing, Harper and Row. (2) Moss, G. (1999) Gender and consumer behaviour: Further explorations, Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 88100. (3) Voyle, S. (2001) Nexts founder to fashion Marks and Spencer look, Financial Times, 3rd February, p. 1.

Gloria Moss Head of Research, Product Psychology Associate Lecturer Open University Business School

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