The Brand Challenge

The idea of a book that brings together perspectives on brand-building from many different market sectors and different authors is a compelling one and I was looking forward to reading some new thinking from outside the world of fmcg/cpg. There are some real nuggets and highlights in this volume but also some frustrations and missed opportunities.

The biggest issue is the lack of an overview that compares and contrasts the different views and draws some conclusions about the current status of branding: do ‘brand’ and ‘branding’ mean the same thing across sectors? Are some sectors more advanced than others? Is there even a consistent definition of brand or has that definition evolved differently in each sector?  Given the status of the individual authors and the quality of their contributions it would have been good to see some synthesis of the ideas collected here – though Kartikeya Kompella does explain well why he chose the authors and their sectors.

The opening four chapters cover what Kompella calls ‘foundation’ topics: Focus (by Al Ries), Identity (Tony Allen), Brand Innovation (Peter Fisk) and Bridging the gap between brand idea and delivery (Allen Adamson). Each of these chapters is well-written as you’d expect from such expert authors and covers the foundational ground briskly and pointedly. However, the principles outlined in the foundation chapters are not necessarily reflected in the sector-specific material later. For example, Adamson is very good on the difference between brand and branding and offers good advice on developing both concurrently via prototyping. However, none of the later sector-specific chapters picks up these ideas.

The eleven sector-specific chapters cover a very wide range of industries and challenges: luxury brands, retail, B2B, media, finance, non-profit, fashion, hospitality, place brands, technology and sport. Each author has been well-chosen to give a detailed perspective on the sector-specific challenges and approaches and the notes I made as I read tell me that I learned something new or found some inspiration in every single chapter. There is some unevenness thought that, I believe, comes from the fact that in some sectors the importance of the brand is well-understood and has been for a long time, whilst in other sectors brand is or as been less central to the business. In these latter sectors, a significant part of the relevant chapter needs to be taken up with a justification of why it is important to think about branding at all. As a result, some chapters lay out important grounding and others focus on more advanced ideas. It may have been helpful to organise the chapters to reflect this.

There are three stand-out sector chapters for me that interested me in different ways: Luxury Branding by Jean-Noël Kapferer; The City as a Brand by Jeremy Hildreth and JT Singh; Football Brands by Sue Bridgewater.

I’m a long-time fan of Kapferer and his confident, sure recommendations rooted in solid strategic thinking plus experience. He very clearly distinguishes among luxury, premium and fashion strategies and shows how luxury brand and business model are inextricably interlinked. I particularly enjoyed his command to discontinue a product if it sells too much or too fast! His advice on advertising (“not to sell but to sell the dream”) is refreshing and his case examples are vivid and persuasive.

Hildreth & Singh’s chapter on City Brands also drew me in with excellent examples and they made me think anew about cities as brands with multisensory experiences, stories and rituals that all contribute to building our memories of place. I particularly liked their emphasis on streetscapes and street-level leitmotivs, quoting Charles Landry “when we think of ourselves in Rome we see ourselves in the Via Condotti – we don’t envision the abstract entity of Rome”. This chapter is rich with many other stimulating and inspiring examples, not just for those working on city brands but for anyone interested in brands.

They authors also do an excellent job of laying out how working on city brands brings unique constraints and guide us very clearly through the levers for branding cities.
Football Brands by Sue Bridgewater opens with the statement “Football clubs are brands”, acknowledging that this might not go down well with many fans. Fortunately, she wastes no time in trying to overly justify or explain this and moves on briskly to the nature of fan relationships and loyalty with their brands and to the financial value of football brands. There is an interesting section on logos / badges and identity and a good summary of motivational needs fulfilled by identifying as a fan. However, for me, the most interesting aspect of Bridgewater’s analysis is the reference to the relative independence of fan loyalty and team quality or performance. Many clubs with little prospect of winning any trophy have very loyal fan bases. Have we finally found a type of brand that breaks the perceived quality rule?

In summary, The Brand Challenge is an interesting addition to the marketing literature and contains a lot of useful content. It’s a pity that it lacks a unifying theme or overall point of view - making it a little less than the sum of its parts.

Sandra Pickering is Founding Partner of opento.com, specialising in applying data science and neuroscience to helping businesses grow.