As industries turn increasingly hostile, it is clear that strong brand-building skills are needed to survive and prosper. In David Aaker's pathbreaking book, Managing Brand Equity, managers discovered the value of a brand as a strategic asset and a company's primary source of competitive advantage. Now, in this compelling new work, Aaker uses real brand-building cases from Saturn, General Electric, Kodak, Healthy Choice, McDonald's, and others to demonstrate how strong brands have been created and managed. A common pitfall of brand strategists is to focus on brand attributes. Aaker shows how to break out of the box by considering emotional and self-expressive benefits and by introducing the brand-as-person, brand-as-organization, and brand-as-symbol perspectives. The twin concepts of brand identity (the brand image that brand strategists aspire to create or maintain) and brand position (that part of the brand identity that is to be actively communicated) play a key role in managing the "out-of-the-box" brand. A second pitfall is to ignore the fact that individual brands are part of a larger system consisting of many intertwined and overlapping brands and subbrands. Aaker shows how to manage the "brand system" to achieve clarity and synergy, to adapt to a changing environment, and to leverage brand assets into new markets and products. Aaker also addresses practical management issues, introducing a set of brand equity measures, termed the brand equity ten, to help those who measure and track brand equity across products and markets. He presents and analyzes brand-nurturing organizational forms that are responsive to the challenges of coordinated brands across markets, products, roles, and contexts. Potentially destructive organizational pressures to change a brand's identity and position are also discussed. As executives in a wide range of industries seek to prevent their products and services from becoming commodities, they are recommitting themselves to brands as a foundation of business strategy. This new work will be essential reading for the battle-ready.

Recognized by Brandweek as "the dean of the brand-equity movement," David Aaker now prepares managers for the next level of the brand revolution—brand leadership. For the first time, Aaker and coauthor Erich Joachimsthaler describe how the emerging paradigm of strategic brand leadership is replacing the classic, tactically oriented brand management system pioneered by Procter & Gamble. This fundamental shift involves nothing less than a revolution in organizational structure, systems, and culture—as the authors demonstrate with hundreds of case studies from companies such as Polo Ralph Lauren, Virgin Airlines, Adidas, GE, Marriott, IBM, McDonald's, Maggi, and Swatch. This immensely readable book provides the brand management team with the capability to: --Create and elaborate brand identities (what should the brand stand for) --Use the brand relationship spectrum, a powerful tool to harness subbrands and endorsed brands to form brand architectures that create clarity, synergy and leveraged assets --Identify the customer "sweet spot" and the driving idea that will move brand-building efforts beyond advertising to break out of the clutter --Use the Internet and sponsorship to make brands resources work more effectively --Address the four imperatives of global brand management Like David Aaker's two previous bestselling books, Brand Leadership will be essential reading for line executives and brand managers in market-driven firms worldwide.

The most important assets of any business are intangible: its company name, brands, symbols, and slogans, and their underlying associations, perceived quality, name awareness, customer base, and proprietary resources such as patents, trademarks, and channel relationships. These assets, which comprise brand equity, are a primary source of competitive advantage and future earnings, contends David Aaker, a national authority on branding. Yet, research shows that managers cannot identify with confidence their brand associations, levels of consumer awareness, or degree of customer loyalty. Moreover in the last decade, managers desperate for short-term financial results have often unwittingly damaged their brands through price promotions and unwise brand extensions, causing irreversible deterioration of the value of the brand name. Although several companies, such as Canada Dry and Colgate-Palmolive, have recently created an equity management position to be guardian of the value of brand names, far too few managers, Aaker concludes, really understand the concept of brand equity and how it must be implemented. In a fascinating and insightful examination of the phenomenon of brand equity, Aaker provides a clear and well-defined structure of the relationship between a brand and its symbol and slogan, as well as each of the five underlying assets, which will clarify for managers exactly how brand equity does contribute value. The author opens each chapter with a historical analysis of either the success or failure of a particular company's attempt at building brand equity: the fascinating Ivory soap story; the transformation of Datsun to Nissan; the decline of Schlitz beer; the making of the Ford Taurus; and others. Finally, citing examples from many other companies, Aaker shows how to avoid the temptation to place short-term performance before the health of the brand and, instead, to manage brands strategically by creating, developing, and exploiting each of the five assets in turn

"Unquestionably the most comprehensive treatment available on the subject. I found this book unique in its capacity to benefit executives, planning staff, and students of strategy alike." —Robert L. Joss, Dean of the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University A successful business strategy enables managers to provide organizational vision, monitor and understand a dynamic business environment, generate creative strategic options in response to environmental changes, and base every business effort on sustainable competitive advantages. Developing Business Strategies provides the knowledge and understanding needed to generate and implement such a strategy. This fully revised and updated edition of David Aaker's highly influential strategic manual offers copious new information on important emerging business topics. Numerous new and revised sections cover such critical areas as the big idea, knowledge management, the customer as an active partner, creative thinking, distinguishing fads from trends, forecasting technologies, alliances, design as strategy, downstream business models, and more. Other important new features of this comprehensive guide include: A new chapter on strategic positioning Many new illustrative examples from B-to-B, high-tech, and the Internet Increased focus on global leadership and global brand management Using the Internet to develop and support business strategies For managers who need to develop and implement effective, responsive business strategies that keep the organization competitive through changing business conditions, Developing Business Strategies, Sixth Edition is the way to go.

In this long-awaited book from the world's premier brand expert and author of the seminal work Building Strong Brands, David Aaker shows managers how to construct a brand portfolio strategy that will support a company's business strategy and create relevance, differentiation, energy, leverage, and clarity. Building on case studies of world-class brands such as Dell, Disney, Microsoft, Sony, Dove, Intel, CitiGroup, and PowerBar, Aaker demonstrates how powerful, cohesive brand strategies have enabled managers to revitalize brands, support business growth, and create discipline in confused, bloated portfolios of master brands, subbrands, endorser brands, co-brands, and brand extensions. Aaker offers readers step-by-step advice on what to do when confronting scenarios such as the following: • Brands are underleveraged • The business strategy is at risk because of inadequate brand platforms • The business faces a relevance threat caused by emerging subcategories • The firm's brands are tired and bland • Strategy is paralyzed by a lack of priority among the brands • Brands are cluttered and confusing to both customers and employees • The firm needs to move into the super-premium or value arenas to create margin or sales volume • Margin pressures require points of differentiation Renowned brand guru Aaker demonstrates that assuring that each brand in the portfolio has a clear role and actively reinforces and supports the other portfolio brands will profoundly affect the firm's profitability. Brand Portfolio Strategy is required reading not only for brand managers but for all managers with bottom-line responsibility to their shareholders.

The tenth annual Advertising and Consumer Psychology Conference held in San Francisco focused on branding -- a subject generating intense interest both in academia and in the "real world." The principle theory behind these conferences is that much can be gained by joining advertising and marketing professionals with academic researchers in advertising. Professionals can gain insight into the new theories, measurement tools and empirical findings that are emerging, while academics are stimulated by the insights and experience that professionals describe and the research questions that they pose. This book consists of papers delivered by experts from academia and industry discussing issues regarding the role of advertising in the establishment and maintenance of brand equity -- making this volume of interest to advertising and marketing specialists, as well as consumer and social psychologists.

Branding guru Aaker shows how to eliminate the competition and become the lead brand in your market This ground-breaking book defines the concept of brand relevance using dozens of case studies-Prius, Whole Foods, Westin, iPad and more-and explains how brand relevance drives market dynamics, which generates opportunities for your brand and threats for the competition. Aaker reveals how these companies have made other brands in their categories irrelevant. Key points: When managing a new category of product, treat it as if it were a brand; By failing to produce what customers want or losing momentum and visibility, your brand becomes irrelevant; and create barriers to competitors by supporting innovation at every level of the organization. Using dozens of case studies, shows how to create or dominate new categories or subcategories, making competitors irrelevant Shows how to manage the new category or subcategory as if it were a brand and how to create barriers to competitors Describes the threat of becoming irrelevant by failing to make what customer are buying or losing energy David Aaker, the author of four brand books, has been called the father of branding This book offers insight for creating and/or owning a new business arena. Instead of being the best, the goal is to be the only brand around-making competitors irrelevant.

Powerful product, country, and functional silos are jeopardizing companies' marketing efforts. Because of silos, firms misallocate resources, send inconsistent messages to the marketplace, and fail to leverage scale economies and successes--all of which can threaten a company's survival. As David Aaker shows in Spanning Silos, the unfettered decentralization that produces silos is no longer feasible in today's marketplace. It's up to chief marketing officers to break down silo walls to foster cooperation and synergy. This isn't easy: silo teams guard their autonomy vigorously. As proof of their power, consider the fact that the average CMO tenure is just twenty-three months. How to proceed? Drawing on interviews with CMOs, Aaker explains how to: Strength your credibility with silo teams and your CEO Use cross-functional teams and other strategic linking devices Foster communication across silos Select the right CMO role-- from facilitator to strategic captain Develop common planning processes Adapt your brand strategy to silo units Allocate marketing dollars strategically across silos Develop silo-spanning marketing programs In this age of dynamic markets, new media, and globalization, getting the different parts of your organization to collaborate is more critical--and more difficult--than ever. This book gives you the road map you need to accomplish that feat.

Relevant to strategic management courses as well as market management, this textbook synthesises literature in the field of strategy and can be used at both the undergraduate and MBA levels. This edition provides greater emphasis on external market analysis, including the value proposition, product category analysis, and more.