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Brands and Branding by Robert Morris

Brands and Branding
Rita Clifton, John Simmons, and Sameena Ahmad (Co-Editors)
Bloomberg Press

This book offers a variety of perspectives on brands and branding from several dozen different experts on marketing. I especially enjoyed reading it because most of these experts draw upon experiences outside of the United States. True, core concepts have global relevance but strategies and tactics to create, increase, and leverage brand equity necessarily vary from one marketplace to another. For example, Sameena Ahmad discusses ³Globalisation and brands² (Chapter 11), Kim Faulkner examines ³Branding in South-East Asia² (Chapter 13), and Simon Anholt offers some valuable insights concerning ³Branding places and nations² (Chapter 14). Once again I am reminded of Warren Buffett¹s observation that price is what we charge for what we sell but value is what a customer thinks it¹s worth. The experts whose counsel is included in this volume can, together, help their shared reader to gain a better understanding of issues such as those cited previously as well as (in Barwise¹s words) ³the social and financial value of brands, current best practice in branding, and some of the emerging issues around this important, complex, and ever fascinating topic.² Among the countless value-added benefits provided in this book are various checklists which are included within several of the individual essays. For example, those which suggest the financial uses of brand valuation (page 43), methodologies for brand positioning (page 81), conclusions which can be made about visual and verbal identity and their relationship to brands in the future (pages 125-126), and questions to be addressed insofar as brand protection is concerned (page 168) as well as a recap of the main themes and arguments previously provided in previous chapters (pages 227-229). Of course, it remains for each reader to determine the nature and extent of relevance of the book¹s 15 chapters. There are many outstanding books on the subject of brands and branding and this is one of the best.