David A. Aaker > Quotes

“A brand vision should attempt to go beyond functional benefits to consider organizational values; a higher purpose; brand personality; and emotional, social, and self-expressive benefits.”
― David Aaker, Aaker on Branding: 20 Principles That Drive Success

“Yogi Berra, the fabled Yankee baseball player and manager, was said to have pointed out, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up somewhere else.” That is so true about brands; you need to know where they are to end up.”
― David A. Aaker, Aaker on Branding: 20 Principles That Drive Success

“Why do stories persuade? There are several explanations: First, people deduce a story’s logic by themselves. We know from research and common sense that self-discovery is much more powerful than having people talk at you.”
― David Aaker, Creating Signature Stories: Strategic Messaging that Persuades, Energizes and Inspires

“A borrowed signature story can also come from news accounts, historical events, biographies, novels, fables, TV shows or movies. Whatever the source, the stories must communicate the strategic message in an intriguing, involving and authentic way.”
― David Aaker, Creating Signature Stories: Strategic Messaging that Persuades, Energizes and Inspires

“If you are told that the king died and then the queen died, that is a sequence of events. If you are told that the king died and that the queen then died of grief, that is a story.”
― David Aaker, Creating Signature Stories: Strategic Messaging that Persuades, Energizes and Inspires

“There is no person in the firm who is really charged with protecting the brand equity. Those nominally in charge of the brand,perhaps termed brand managers or product marketing managers, are in fact evaluated on the basis of short-term measures.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“Managing with a long-term perspective is difficult in the face of the shareholder value emphasis, and other pressures, facing U.S. managers.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“What a business does (the way it competes and where it chooses to do so) usually is easily imitated. It is more difficult to respond to what a business is, since that involves acquiring or neutralizing specialized assets or skills. Anyone can decide to distribute cereal or detergent through supermarkets, but few have the clout to do it as effectively as, say, General Mills.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“First, recognize that a set of facts can guide and inspire only if it is heard and gains buy-in—but that is rarely the case. Second, explore how stories can accomplish or help to accomplish the same objective. Sometimes, a set of facts can be turned into a story by providing a context and more information.”
― David Aaker, Creating Signature Stories: Strategic Messaging that Persuades, Energizes and Inspires

“Unlike brand-building activities, most sales promotions are easily copied. In fact, competitors must retaliate or suffer unacceptable losses.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“organizations feel pressure to be relevant in the digital era, stories have become a hot topic in marketing communication. Many firms have added processes and structures that enable them to find, create and evaluate strong stories. They have also added journalists and filmmakers to their staffs to present these stories in a compelling way.”
― David A. Aaker, Creating Signature Stories: Strategic Messaging that Persuades, Energizes and Inspires

“This book shows how to apply the power of storytelling to strategic messaging in the age of social media.”
― David Aaker, Creating Signature Stories: Strategic Messaging that Persuades, Energizes and Inspires

“A story bank can also help website visitors find the most helpful stories. Skype, for example, has put stories into 15 compartments including acting, art/design, beauty, education and food. And Skype for Business has its own set of over 130 signature stories that can be searched by industry, product or language.”
― David Aaker, Creating Signature Stories: Strategic Messaging that Persuades, Energizes and Inspires

“we need to find measures of long-term performance to supplement or replace short-term financials, measures that will be convincing enough to satisfy shareholders.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“Briefly, it is a set of assets such as name awareness, loyal customers, perceived quality, and associations (e.g. being “pure” and “it floats”) that are linked to the brand (its name and symbol) and add (or subtract) value to the product or service being offered.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“Without question the key to the success of P&G is its commitment to the development of brand equity, the brand management system that supports it, and the ongoing investment in marketing that sustains it.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“P&G is known on Wall Street as a firm which takes a long-term view of its brand profitability.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“Without any clear product difference, Lever could not dislodge Ivory, and ultimately withdrew from the market.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“There is no long-term strategy for the brand. The following questions about the brand environment five or ten years into thefuture are unanswered, and may have not been addressed: What associations should the brand have? In what product classes shouldthe brand be competing? What mental image should the brand stimulate in the future?”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“The marketing effort (and the effort to create and maintain equity) was diffused and uncoordinated, and lacked a budget commitment. The solution, creating a brand management team responsible for the marketing program and its coordination with sales and manufacturing, was a key event in the history of branding.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“Most firms will focus efforts upon one brand, protecting its position by pursuing a given positioning strategy. New segments are usually therefore uncovered by competitors who are attempting to gain a position in the market.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“the development of brand equity can create associations that can drive market positions, persist over long time periods, and be capable of resisting aggressive competitors. However, it can also involve an initial and ongoing investment which can be substantial and will not necessarily result in short-term profits. Payoffs, when they come, can involve decades. Thus, management of brand equity is difficult, requiring patience and vision.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“Unless your brand is one of these exceptions, it needs energy! That energy can come from new products—provided, of course, that your business is blessed with truly original and different products that are meaningful to people’s lifestyles and passions.”
― David Aaker, Creating Signature Stories: Strategic Messaging that Persuades, Energizes and Inspires

“The value of an established brand is in part due to the reality that it is more difficult to build brands today than it was only a few decades ago.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name

“Branding adds spirit and a soul to what would otherwise be a robotic, automated, generic price-value proposition. If branding is ultimately about the creation of human meaning, it follows logically that it is the humans who must ultimately provide it.”
― David A. Aaker

“An asset is something a firm possesses, such as a brand name or retail location, which is superior to that of the competition. A skill is something a firm does better than its competitors do, such as advertising or efficient manufacturing.”
― David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name