Strategic Brand Management

This book, written by two well‐known names in scholarly research and academic text writing, is positioned as approaching the topic of brand management from a combination of sociological and cultural perspectives. Its content is clearly differentiated in terms of the grounding on solid theoretical underpinnings, although its format and looks seem to direct the reader to a focus on easy‐reading and “decompressing” illustrations. The book contains a vast array of examples and case studies featuring very well known brand names in the global market.

According to the book's “road map”, Section 1 deals with the Socio‐cultural Meaning of Brands. The discussion of the section draws on the field of psychology, sociology and anthropology. Chapter 1 “Focus on understanding the social psychology of brands” is an elementary introduction evolving around two building‐blocks – consumers' decision‐making process and the concept of involvement. The writing is very accessible and I enjoyed the insight of rationality. All the chapters contain discussion questions and some short, but interesting, case studies are embedded in the text. Faithful to its “theoretical positioning”, each chapter includes a strong list of academic references.

Chapter 2 delves into “Emotion and brands”. There is a good “behind the scenes” grasp of the nature of emotions, social perspectives and emotional response. Furthermore, there are good sections on “emotion and preference formation” and “emotions and trust”. The discussion on the implications for brand strategy could have been extended … Chapter 3 tackles “The symbolic meaning of brands”. An overview of postmodernism is paving the way well for what is to come next. The considerations on the “lived and mediated experience” could have been further explored. Chapter 4 introduces notions related to “Cultural meaning systems and brands”. I wish the authors had expanded the analysis of semiotics and brand meanings. Good “snapshots” on brand communities, neo‐tribes and Aidoko brands. Section 2 focuses on “Brand Equity”, as well as Chapter 5, which provide the reader with an introductory “flyover” of the topic. There is, though, an interesting presentation of the model of brand equity synthesis. Chapter 6 discusses “Auditing and measuring brand equity”. There is a good “passage” on “benefit structure” and the use of means‐end laddering analysis, as well as coverage of topics such as price elasticity and conjoint analysis. Finally, Section 3 is devoted to “managing Brands”. Chapter 7 presents “Brand strategies 1 – symbolic brands”. The chapter starts well by tackling the management of brand strategies in the mind space, but I had higher expectations related to “intellectual follow‐up” … Social integration strategies are a notable exception, although the discussion of brand mythologies could have been an added challenge.

Chapter 8 focuses on “Brand strategies 2 – functional brands. There are here some good comments on “minimal cognitive processes”, for example, shallow processing market beliefs and surrogate indicators (limited discussion). Many short sections covering a multiplicity of topics … In Chapter 9, the authors express their views on “Brand stretching and retrenching”. There are good sections on “brand hierarchy”, “master brands” and “brand stretching” in a postmodern world, but most of the discussion rests on well‐established views of traditional marketing … Chapter 10 covers “Branding services and managing the corporate brand”. The section on “Vision‐cultural‐image gap analysis” could have been “reinforced” in terms of content. Again, I was expecting a different type of analytical challenge in this chapter, as opposed to relying on well‐diffused axes of argumentation. Finally, Chapter 11 analyses “Brand and advertising”. It would have been beneficial to the readers if the insights from tracking studies of brand‐advertising effects had been further explored. My views about the content of the last two chapters can also be extended to this final chapter especially … because it is the final overview!

Overall, this book strikes a good academic balance between easy‐reading and good theoretical underpinnings. At times, its content relies a bit too much on traditional and well‐known concepts for my personal taste … Still, it is a good student companion for those studying the topic. Nevertheless, the authors could have been more daring and challenging by introducing areas and concepts which are causing a lot of turmoil in traditional strategic brand management. Just to give a taste of these emerging future trends in branding, I will mention new topics that range from brand boycotts, brand‐casting and brand spirit to tryvertising, transumers and Generation C …