Book review: Brand Immortality

I recently finished reading my review copy of this book and I am very impressed. This book is must reading for brand managers and anyone involved in marketing management.

Drawing conclusions and culling data from 880+ case studies submitted to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) dataBANK and detailing numerous case studies from winners of the IPA Effectiveness Awards, the authors have compellingly made the case as to why the eventual death of any given brand is not an inevitable fact of life. The authors point out the pitfalls and dangers in much current thinking in the field of marketing.

This book delivers some visionary thinking about how to view your brands in the face of decreasing control over brand messages by you and increasing control by consumers. Your customers and the market will determine what your brand really means and it is up to you to listen first and only then continually develop and hone your brand's personality, emotional elements and communications in order to stay unique, salient and profitable.

Learn why applying the Boston Matrix to brands is dangerous and why tagging your brands with labels like "cash cows", "dogs', and "question marks" almost assures them of eventual death. Learn how to make your brands transcend product categories to live long and prosperous lives. Learn the truth about how the effectiveness of TV advertising has actually grown over the past 25 years despite what you may have heard or read about its alleged demise and decreasing relevancy. Learn about the fallacy of Rosser Reeves and why people who buy your brand are more aware of your brand rather then the other way around. Learn why the ratio between share of voice (SOV) and market share is so important and gain an understanding of how this ratio can be managed to extend the life of your brands indefinitely. Understand the difference between leading and lagging indicators and why it is essential to keep a well-balanced scorecard when monitoring KPI's. This book will change the way you think about product brands and brand management.

Very interestingly, the authors are based in the U.K. and many of the brands they talk about are U.K. brands. These were not brands that I have generally heard of before. The interesting thing was, when reading the case histories I was able to remain objective about the analysis precisely because I had not heard of some of these brands before. This stood in stark contrast to many other books on branding that I've read in which the author(s) discuss well-known American brands. It is surprising how your perspective changes when you read about successful brands that you've never heard of before and then realize how your own awareness of brands being analyzed in other books influences your opinions not only about those books but also those authors. This little dynamic surprised me and only reinforced to me the power of strong brands.

Brand Immortality represents a truly new and refreshing approach to the subject and I absolutely recommend it. The only downside is that most will have to wait until January 28 for the book to be available. When it does become available, buy it.