I’ll never write a book on branding. I don’t have the time to sit down and commit the months, probably years, it would take to create something of value on the topic of brand management. And the people I have spoken to who have committed that kind of time to writing a management book invariably regret it down the track.
Recently both Jeff Swystun and Mark Ritson took aim at the brand industry with characteristic frankness.
As marketers we take brand promises for granted. We just accept that every brand in its right mind has one and that it is committed to keeping it. As consumers, we have no such awareness. We don’t wander around with the strategies of our favorite brands on our devices checking that, wherever we see them, they are doing what they said they would do in the strategy.
I sipped my espresso and waited nervously for her. The warm Italian sun was streaming into the café window and I savored the Milanese evening.
As the role of marketers continues to expand, so do the pressures. Some marketers will rise to the challenge while others will slip behind. Why will they slip? Because change is hard. That’s why the future can look so much like the past. And why brands and the marketers who manage them often lose their edge. For those marketers who see comfort zones as a dangerous place, we have designed a very unique experience around...
