How Brands Grow

This book provides evidence-based answers to the key questions asked by marketers every day. Tackling issues such as how brands grow, how advertising really works, what price promotions really do and how loyalty programs really affect loyalty, How Brands Grow presents decades of research in a style that is written for marketing professionals to grow their brands.

Following the success of international bestseller How Brands Grow: What Marketer's Don't Know comes a new book that takes readers further on a journey to smarter, evidence-based marketing. How Brands Grow Part 2, by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp, is about fundamentals of buying behaviour and brand performance - fundamentals that provide a consistent roadmap for brand growth, and improved marketing productivity. Ride the next wave of marketing knowledge with insights such as how to build Mental Availability, metrics to assess the strength of your brand's Distinctive Assets and a framework to underpin your brand's Physical Availability strategy. Learn practical insights such as smart ways to look at word of mouth and the sort of advertising needed to attract new brand buyers. This book is also a must read for marketers working in emerging markets, services, durables and luxury categories, with evidence that will challenge conventional wisdom about growing brands in these markets. If you've ever wondered if word of mouth has more impact in China, if luxury brands break all the rules of marketing or if online shoppers are more loyal to brands or retailers, this book is for you. If you read and loved How Brands Grow, it's time to move to the next level of marketing. And if you haven't, get ready -- this book will change the way you think about marketing forever.

How Brands Grow Part 2 is about the fundamentals of buying behaviours and brand performance fundamentals that provide a consistent roadmap for brand growth, and improved marketing productivity. This revised edition includes updates to all chapters and the addition of a new chapter, 'Getting Down to Business-to-Business Markets'.

This book is for anyone with a brand.It is a book about future-proofing your brand's identity. It will help you set up a long-term strategy to build Distinctive Assets, and tell you what you need to do to protect them.Do you want to get better at branding?You'll learn which strategies and actions work, as well as which ones don't, to help you take advantage of opportunities and avoid minefields.Building Distinctive Brand Assets is for anyone with a brand logo, font or colour scheme, and is essential reading for those who have wondered if (or have been told) it's time for a change. Readers will learn how to set up a long-term strategy to build a strong brand identity, and how to make use of knowledge, metrics and management systems in order to build and protect a brand's Distinctive Assets.Building Distinctive Brand Assets is divided into three sections that capture the processes involved in brand asset creation, implementation and ongoing management. The first section is focuses on strategy, and covers how Distinctive Assets are created and their role in a broader brand equity building. The second section covers measurement approaches, and how to use and interpret key metrics. The third section delves into the strengths and weaknesses of different types of assets and introduces the idea of a Distinctive Asset palette. This section also outlines how to set up a Distinctive Asset management system to provide an early warning system to identify potential threats before they evolve into major issues.

Grow the Core stands conventional wisdom about business growth on its head and provides a proven formula for growing your business in recessionary times. These days, it′s a common belief among business leaders across industry sectors that the best way to grow their businesses is to expand into new markets. In reality, virtually all top–performing companies achieve superior results through a leading position in their core business. Unfortunately, there′s very little in the way of practical advice on how to do this. Grow the Core shows you how tofocus on your core business for brand success, with a program of eight workouts road-tested by the author's consultancy, the brandgym. The book provides inspiration, practical advice and proven tools for building and strengthening your core business. It is packed with case studies from brandgym clients, including Mars, Friesland Campina, SAB Miller and Danone. The book features exclusive brandgym research, in addition to front–line experience on over one hundred brand coaching projects.

This is a book for managers who know that their organisations are stuck in a mindset that thrives on fashionable business theories that are no more than folk wisdom, and whose so-called strategies that are little more than banal wish lists. It puts forward the notion that the application of uncommon sense - thinking or acting differently from other organisations in a way that makes unusual sense - is the secret to competitive success. For those who want to succeed and stand out from the herd this book is a beacon of uncommon sense and a timely antidote to managerial humbug.

Coca-Cola. Harley-Davidson. Nike. Budweiser. Valued by customers more for what they symbolize than for what they do, products like these are more than brands--they are cultural icons. How do managers create brands that resonate so powerfully with consumers? Based on extensive historical analyses of some of America's most successful iconic brands, including ESPN, Mountain Dew, Volkswagen, Budweiser, and Harley-Davidson, this book presents the first systematic model to explain how brands become icons. Douglas B. Holt shows how iconic brands create "identity myths" that, through powerful symbolism, soothe collective anxieties resulting from acute social change. Holt warns that icons can't be built through conventional branding strategies, which focus on benefits, brand personalities, and emotional relationships. Instead, he calls for a deeper cultural perspective on traditional marketing themes like targeting, positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty--and outlines a distinctive set of "cultural branding" principles that will radically alter how companies approach everything from marketing strategy to market research to hiring and training managers. Until now, Holt shows, even the most successful iconic brands have emerged more by intuition and serendipity than by design. With How Brands Become Icons, managers can leverage the principles behind some of the most successful brands of the last half-century to build their own iconic brands. Douglas B. Holt is associate professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School.

How can we sell more, to more people, and for more money? The marketing world is awash with myths, misconceptions, dubious metrics and tactics that bear little relation to our actual buying behaviour.