Brand Immortality How Brands Can Live Long and Prosper Book Review
Brand Immortality How Brands Can Live Long and Prosper Book Review
Companies and brands have taken a terrible beating over the past year as consumer groups and online communities have not only raised issues but at times viciously attacked the organizations, products and occasionally even management and employees.
While Brand Immortality is based on work done on behalf of the IPA (Institute of Practitioners of Advertising) it does more than simply promote communications agencies, it should be of interest to all communications people.
The two authors obviously spent considerable time researching information on household name brands. Their premise is that properly managed no brand needs to decay and die. Pringle and Field feel that all it takes is for the right decisions, right resources and right imagination to be brought to bear and viola…brands can be continuously renewed and outlive their creators.
Our problem in reading the book was with each example they discussed we also found ourselves thinking of brands that did die. Sometimes long, agonizing deaths.
At the same time we found ourselves looking at a number of their case histories – Nike, Apple, Virgin – and others and noting none of these brands are over 20 years old. Twenty years isn’t exactly immortality.
The issues we have with a number of the examples they use doesn’t mean we find Brand Immortality lacking but rather just to make you think for yourself.
The authors did do an excellent job of identifying the factors that are vital to a brand’s long-term survival.
To be fair to Pringle and Field, they did do extensive research – more than 1,000 case studies that were submitted to the IPA. At the same time, the two enriched their text with comments and information from industry insiders who were actually involved in the marketing submissions.
The book is a good marketing communications primer for people fresh to the industry and a refresher for the rest of us. They do delve into a number of senior management areas that helps you understand why some firms do little or nothing to refresh a brand preferring to let them ride along as cash cows until they pass into oblivion. They use these funds to position and promote the new rising stars in the organization.
It is sometimes difficult to understand how Pringle and Field can rationalize and justify the value of brand and product line extensions as valid efforts to ensure brand immortality.
While the advertising executives note that there are tremendous technological and social changes taking place that could be disruptive to the mortality of some brands, they do feel the changes provide some opportunities for the brands…they just aren’t real certain what they are.
Obviously we believe their research and analysis are based on helping prove advertising. But at the same time they do explore the implications and doors that are opening for all marketing and communications efforts.
Pringle and Field know conventional media (advertising opportunities) are changing and need to change.
Neither they nor the IPA members have any concrete recommendations on how to effect that change and what it will mean to their brands’ mortality.
The answers are out there. Pringle and Fields might do a second version of Brand Immortality doing some original research beyond the case study submissions by members. Few agencies or people submit their programs/activities when they failed.
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Brand Immortality How Brands Can Live Long and Prosper Book Review - To learn more about this author, visit Andy Marken's Website.
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Brand Immortality – How Brands Can Live Long and Prosper – Harrish Pringle, Peter Field; Kogan Page, 525 S Fourth St, Philadelphia, PA 19147; January, 2009; 330pps; $45.
Companies and brands have taken a terrible beating over the past year as consumer groups and online communities have not only raised issues but at times viciously attacked the organizations, products and occasionally even management and employees.
While Brand Immortality is based on work done on behalf of the IPA (Institute of Practitioners of Advertising) it does more than simply promote communications agencies, it should be of interest to all communications people.
The two authors obviously spent considerable time researching information on household name brands. Their premise is that properly managed no brand needs to decay and die. Pringle and Field feel that all it takes is for the right decisions, right resources and right imagination to be brought to bear and viola…brands can be continuously renewed and outlive their creators.
Our problem in reading the book was with each example they discussed we also found ourselves thinking of brands that did die. Sometimes long, agonizing deaths.
At the same time we found ourselves looking at a number of their case histories – Nike, Apple, Virgin – and others and noting none of these brands are over 20 years old. Twenty years isn’t exactly immortality.
The issues we have with a number of the examples they use doesn’t mean we find Brand Immortality lacking but rather just to make you think for yourself.
The authors did do an excellent job of identifying the factors that are vital to a brand’s long-term survival.
To be fair to Pringle and Field, they did do extensive research – more than 1,000 case studies that were submitted to the IPA. At the same time, the two enriched their text with comments and information from industry insiders who were actually involved in the marketing submissions.
The book is a good marketing communications primer for people fresh to the industry and a refresher for the rest of us. They do delve into a number of senior management areas that helps you understand why some firms do little or nothing to refresh a brand preferring to let them ride along as cash cows until they pass into oblivion. They use these funds to position and promote the new rising stars in the organization.
It is sometimes difficult to understand how Pringle and Field can rationalize and justify the value of brand and product line extensions as valid efforts to ensure brand immortality.
While the advertising executives note that there are tremendous technological and social changes taking place that could be disruptive to the mortality of some brands, they do feel the changes provide some opportunities for the brands…they just aren’t real certain what they are.
Obviously we believe their research and analysis are based on helping prove advertising. But at the same time they do explore the implications and doors that are opening for all marketing and communications efforts.
Pringle and Field know conventional media (advertising opportunities) are changing and need to change.
Neither they nor the IPA members have any concrete recommendations on how to effect that change and what it will mean to their brands’ mortality.
The answers are out there. Pringle and Fields might do a second version of Brand Immortality doing some original research beyond the case study submissions by members. Few agencies or people submit their programs/activities when they failed.
########
Brand Immortality How Brands Can Live Long and Prosper Book Review - To learn more about this author, visit Andy Marken's Website.
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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