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Building Strong Brands
In this compelling work, Aaker uses real brand-building cases from Saturn, General Electric, Kodak, Healthy Choice, McDonald's, and others to demonstrate how strong brands have been created and managed.
As industries turn increasingly hostile, it is clear that strong brand-building skills are needed to survive and prosper. In David Aaker's pathbreaking book, Managing Brand Equity, managers discovered the value of a brand as a strategic asset and a company's primary source of competitive advantage. Now, in this compelling new work, Aaker uses real brand-building cases from Saturn, General Electric, Kodak, Healthy Choice, McDonald's, and others to demonstrate how strong brands have been created and managed.
A common pitfall of brand strategists is to focus on brand attributes. Aaker shows how to break out of the box by considering emotional and self-expressive benefits and by introducing the brand-as-person, brand-as-organization, and brand-as-symbol perspectives. The twin concepts of brand identity (the brand image that brand strategists aspire to create or maintain) and brand position (that part of the brand identity that is to be actively communicated) play a key role in managing the "out-of-the-box" brand.
A second pitfall is to ignore the fact that individual brands are part of a larger system consisting of many intertwined and overlapping brands and subbrands. Aaker shows how to manage the "brand system" to achieve clarity and synergy, to adapt to a changing environment, and to leverage brand assets into new markets and products.
Aaker also addresses practical management issues, introducing a set of brand equity measures, termed the brand equity ten, to help those who measure and track brand equity across products and markets. He presents and analyzes brand-nurturing organizational forms that are responsive to the challenges of coordinated brands across markets, products, roles, and contexts. Potentially destructive organizational pressures to change a brand's identity and position are also discussed.
As executives in a wide range of industries seek to prevent their products and services from becoming commodities, they are recommitting themselves to brands as a foundation of business strategy. This new work will be essential reading for the battle-ready.
As industries turn increasingly hostile, it is clear that strong brand-building skills are needed to survive and prosper. In David Aaker's pathbreaking book, Managing Brand Equity, managers discovered the value of a brand as a strategic asset and a company's primary source of competitive advantage. Now, in this compelling new work, Aaker uses real brand-building cases from Saturn, General Electric, Kodak, Healthy Choice, McDonald's, and others to demonstrate how strong brands have been created and managed.
A common pitfall of brand strategists is to focus on brand attributes. Aaker shows how to break out of the box by considering emotional and self-expressive benefits and by introducing the brand-as-person, brand-as-organization, and brand-as-symbol perspectives. The twin concepts of brand identity (the brand image that brand strategists aspire to create or maintain) and brand position (that part of the brand identity that is to be actively communicated) play a key role in managing the "out-of-the-box" brand.
A second pitfall is to ignore the fact that individual brands are part of a larger system consisting of many intertwined and overlapping brands and subbrands. Aaker shows how to manage the "brand system" to achieve clarity and synergy, to adapt to a changing environment, and to leverage brand assets into new markets and products.
Aaker also addresses practical management issues, introducing a set of brand equity measures, termed the brand equity ten, to help those who measure and track brand equity across products and markets. He presents and analyzes brand-nurturing organizational forms that are responsive to the challenges of coordinated brands across markets, products, roles, and contexts. Potentially destructive organizational pressures to change a brand's identity and position are also discussed.
As executives in a wide range of industries seek to prevent their products and services from becoming commodities, they are recommitting themselves to brands as a foundation of business strategy. This new work will be essential reading for the battle-ready.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published December 12, 1995
148 people are currently reading
1884 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
October 21, 2018
Love it. Very insightful book in this topic.
March 13, 2018
What I love about this book is an applicable theory, old but gold, and the concept still relevance until this day. This book gives and teach you some "tools" that can you use for planning a brand.
The bad is the author's writing style is too scientifically, it can makes you take more time to understand what you read, and all of the case studies already old (still good to read for me).
The bad is the author's writing style is too scientifically, it can makes you take more time to understand what you read, and all of the case studies already old (still good to read for me).
January 23, 2022
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Странно, но именно эту книгу было особенно тяжело перечитывать. Не из-за того, что автор сложно пишет, а скорее из-за его специфической манеры написания книг. Читатели, которые хорошо знакомы с книгами этого автора, хорошо понимают, о чём я говорю. Для меня Аакер всегда был самым недружелюбным, по отношению к читателям, автором, книги которого читать особенно тяжело. Однако с другой стороны, не найти другого автора по теме брендинга и брендов, который смог описать эту тему настолько детально. Нужно отдать должное Аакеру, ибо ему удалось охватить абсолютно все темы, что приходят на ум в связи с темой бренда.
В своём трёхтомнике Аакер освятил абсолютно все вопросы, которые могут возникнуть в связи с данной темой. Поэтому с одной стороны, это довольно сложные и немного скучные книги, а с другой, они предоставляют максимально возможный анализ темы брендинга в современном бизнесе. Так что, можно сказать, что хочешь не хочешь, а его трёхтомник всё же необходимо прочитать тем, кто занят в данной области бизнеса.
Помимо того, что книга была написана довольно давно и с тех пор так и не обновлялась, многие примеры в книге потеряли свою актуальность если не полностью, то частично. Тем не менее, я не считаю это критически важным, при оценке этой книги.
С моей точки зрения, большим минусом являются первые несколько глав, в которых автор очень подробно рассказывает о становлении и брендинге автомобиля Saturn компании GM. Такого длинного и подробного рассказа я ещё ни в одной книге по брендингу не встречал. У меня возникло даже ощущение, что автор как-то связан с продвижение этой модели автомобиля, ибо настолько настойчиво он пишет об успехе данного бренда. Другими словами, первые несколько глав можно спокойно пропускать, не боясь упустить какую-либо ценную информацию. С моей точки зрения, эти первые главы были актуальны, когда книга только вышла из печати.
Что касается оставшейся, т.е. большей части книги, то тут автор предложит своё видение того, что такое бренд, как он работает и какими способами можно его усилить. Другими словами, автор станет описывать всё, что связано с работой по усилению бренда. Как я сказал, автор пишет важные вещи на тему брендинга, многое из чего не упоминается другими авторами. Однако и тут есть небольшой недостаток в плане размытости материала. И эта одна из причин, почему я сказал, что книгу очень трудно читать. У автора получилось очень плохо структурированная книга, т.е. читатель просто тонет в нагромождении всех этих тем и подтем по брендингу, из-за чего у читателя лишь фрагментарно выстраивается полная картина темы. Плюс, у меня было стойкое ощущение, что некоторые вопросы были раздуты искусственно. Т.е. да, многое о чём пишет Аакер важно и интересно, но есть моменты в книге, о которых ты невольно думаешь: а не надуманно ли это, т.е. возможно это лишне? Это еле заметное ощущение, поэтому я не могу сказать ничего более конкретно. Но вот такое чувство, что некоторые категории искусственно созданы автором. Возможно всё дело в слабом описании типологии бренда, из-за чего возникает ощущение, что автор под одно описание подводит сразу несколько типов бренда.
В заключении хочу отметить, что трёхтомник автора по теме брендинга можно определённо назвать литературой для MBA курса. И стиль написания этих книг, и многогранный охват темы, всё говорит в пользу того, что этот трёхтомник является прекрасным образцом подобной литературы со всеми его плюсами и минусами.
И да, несмотря на то, что я написал выше, о тех минусах, что я нашёл в книге, книга является обязательной для всех маркетологов и бренд-менеджеров, ибо всеохватывающих книг по брендингу просто нет (или почти нет).
P.S. Книгу определённо можно было бы сократить в два раза.
Oddly enough, this particular book was especially hard to reread. Not because of the author's difficult writing, but rather because of his specific way of writing books. Readers who are familiar with this author's books are well aware of what I am talking about. To me, Aaker has always been the most unfriendly, to readers, the author whose books are especially hard to read. But on the other hand, you can't find another author on the subject of branding and brands who has been able to describe the subject in such detail. You have to hand it to Aaker because he managed to cover absolutely every topic that comes to mind in connection with the theme of the brand.
In his three-volume book, Aaker has covered absolutely all the issues that may arise in connection with this topic. Therefore, on the one hand, these are quite complicated and a bit boring books, but on the other hand, they provide the best possible analysis of the topic of branding in modern business. So, it can be said that you want or not, but his three-volume book is still a must-read for those who are engaged in this area of business.
In addition to the fact that the book was written quite a long time ago and has never been updated since, many of the examples in the book have lost some, if not all, of their relevance. Nevertheless, I do not consider this critical in evaluating this book.
From my point of view, the big drawback is the first few chapters, in which the author talks in great detail about the formation and branding of GM's Saturn. I have never seen such a long and detailed story in any book on branding. I even had the feeling that the author had something to do with the promotion of this car model because he writes so insistently about the success of this brand. In other words, you can safely skip the first few chapters without fear of missing any valuable information. From my point of view, these first chapters were relevant when the book first came out of print.
As for the rest of the book, i.e., the bulk of the book, the author will offer his vision of what a brand is, how it works, and in what ways it can be strengthened. In other words, the author will describe everything related to brand enhancement work. As I said, the author writes important things about branding, much of which is not mentioned by other authors. However, there is a slight flaw here as well in terms of the blurring of the material. And this is one of the reasons why I said that the book is very difficult to read. The author's book is very poorly structured, i.e., the reader simply drowns in the accumulation of all these topics and subtopics on branding, which makes the reader only fragmentarily build a complete picture of the topic. Plus, I had a strong feeling that some of the issues were artificially inflated. I mean, yes, a lot of what Aaker writes about is important and interesting, but there are moments in the book that you involuntarily think: isn't it far-fetched, i.e., maybe it's superfluous? It's a faintly noticeable feeling, so I can't say anything more specific. But here's the feeling that some of the categories are artificially created by the author. Perhaps the whole thing is a weak description of the typology of the brand, because of which there is a feeling that the author under one description sums up several types of brands at once.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the author's three volumes on the subject of branding can definitely be called the literature for the MBA course. Both the style of writing of these books and the multifaceted coverage of the topic are all in favor of the fact that this three-volume book is an excellent example of such literature with all its pros and cons.
And yes, despite what I wrote above about the disadvantages I found in the book, the book is a must-read for all marketers and brand managers because there are simply no (or almost no) all-encompassing books on branding.
P.S. The book could definitely be cut in half.
Странно, но именно эту книгу было особенно тяжело перечитывать. Не из-за того, что автор сложно пишет, а скорее из-за его специфической манеры написания книг. Читатели, которые хорошо знакомы с книгами этого автора, хорошо понимают, о чём я говорю. Для меня Аакер всегда был самым недружелюбным, по отношению к читателям, автором, книги которого читать особенно тяжело. Однако с другой стороны, не найти другого автора по теме брендинга и брендов, который смог описать эту тему настолько детально. Нужно отдать должное Аакеру, ибо ему удалось охватить абсолютно все темы, что приходят на ум в связи с темой бренда.
В своём трёхтомнике Аакер освятил абсолютно все вопросы, которые могут возникнуть в связи с данной темой. Поэтому с одной стороны, это довольно сложные и немного скучные книги, а с другой, они предоставляют максимально возможный анализ темы брендинга в современном бизнесе. Так что, можно сказать, что хочешь не хочешь, а его трёхтомник всё же необходимо прочитать тем, кто занят в данной области бизнеса.
Помимо того, что книга была написана довольно давно и с тех пор так и не обновлялась, многие примеры в книге потеряли свою актуальность если не полностью, то частично. Тем не менее, я не считаю это критически важным, при оценке этой книги.
С моей точки зрения, большим минусом являются первые несколько глав, в которых автор очень подробно рассказывает о становлении и брендинге автомобиля Saturn компании GM. Такого длинного и подробного рассказа я ещё ни в одной книге по брендингу не встречал. У меня возникло даже ощущение, что автор как-то связан с продвижение этой модели автомобиля, ибо настолько настойчиво он пишет об успехе данного бренда. Другими словами, первые несколько глав можно спокойно пропускать, не боясь упустить какую-либо ценную информацию. С моей точки зрения, эти первые главы были актуальны, когда книга только вышла из печати.
Что касается оставшейся, т.е. большей части книги, то тут автор предложит своё видение того, что такое бренд, как он работает и какими способами можно его усилить. Другими словами, автор станет описывать всё, что связано с работой по усилению бренда. Как я сказал, автор пишет важные вещи на тему брендинга, многое из чего не упоминается другими авторами. Однако и тут есть небольшой недостаток в плане размытости материала. И эта одна из причин, почему я сказал, что книгу очень трудно читать. У автора получилось очень плохо структурированная книга, т.е. читатель просто тонет в нагромождении всех этих тем и подтем по брендингу, из-за чего у читателя лишь фрагментарно выстраивается полная картина темы. Плюс, у меня было стойкое ощущение, что некоторые вопросы были раздуты искусственно. Т.е. да, многое о чём пишет Аакер важно и интересно, но есть моменты в книге, о которых ты невольно думаешь: а не надуманно ли это, т.е. возможно это лишне? Это еле заметное ощущение, поэтому я не могу сказать ничего более конкретно. Но вот такое чувство, что некоторые категории искусственно созданы автором. Возможно всё дело в слабом описании типологии бренда, из-за чего возникает ощущение, что автор под одно описание подводит сразу несколько типов бренда.
В заключении хочу отметить, что трёхтомник автора по теме брендинга можно определённо назвать литературой для MBA курса. И стиль написания этих книг, и многогранный охват темы, всё говорит в пользу того, что этот трёхтомник является прекрасным образцом подобной литературы со всеми его плюсами и минусами.
И да, несмотря на то, что я написал выше, о тех минусах, что я нашёл в книге, книга является обязательной для всех маркетологов и бренд-менеджеров, ибо всеохватывающих книг по брендингу просто нет (или почти нет).
P.S. Книгу определённо можно было бы сократить в два раза.
Oddly enough, this particular book was especially hard to reread. Not because of the author's difficult writing, but rather because of his specific way of writing books. Readers who are familiar with this author's books are well aware of what I am talking about. To me, Aaker has always been the most unfriendly, to readers, the author whose books are especially hard to read. But on the other hand, you can't find another author on the subject of branding and brands who has been able to describe the subject in such detail. You have to hand it to Aaker because he managed to cover absolutely every topic that comes to mind in connection with the theme of the brand.
In his three-volume book, Aaker has covered absolutely all the issues that may arise in connection with this topic. Therefore, on the one hand, these are quite complicated and a bit boring books, but on the other hand, they provide the best possible analysis of the topic of branding in modern business. So, it can be said that you want or not, but his three-volume book is still a must-read for those who are engaged in this area of business.
In addition to the fact that the book was written quite a long time ago and has never been updated since, many of the examples in the book have lost some, if not all, of their relevance. Nevertheless, I do not consider this critical in evaluating this book.
From my point of view, the big drawback is the first few chapters, in which the author talks in great detail about the formation and branding of GM's Saturn. I have never seen such a long and detailed story in any book on branding. I even had the feeling that the author had something to do with the promotion of this car model because he writes so insistently about the success of this brand. In other words, you can safely skip the first few chapters without fear of missing any valuable information. From my point of view, these first chapters were relevant when the book first came out of print.
As for the rest of the book, i.e., the bulk of the book, the author will offer his vision of what a brand is, how it works, and in what ways it can be strengthened. In other words, the author will describe everything related to brand enhancement work. As I said, the author writes important things about branding, much of which is not mentioned by other authors. However, there is a slight flaw here as well in terms of the blurring of the material. And this is one of the reasons why I said that the book is very difficult to read. The author's book is very poorly structured, i.e., the reader simply drowns in the accumulation of all these topics and subtopics on branding, which makes the reader only fragmentarily build a complete picture of the topic. Plus, I had a strong feeling that some of the issues were artificially inflated. I mean, yes, a lot of what Aaker writes about is important and interesting, but there are moments in the book that you involuntarily think: isn't it far-fetched, i.e., maybe it's superfluous? It's a faintly noticeable feeling, so I can't say anything more specific. But here's the feeling that some of the categories are artificially created by the author. Perhaps the whole thing is a weak description of the typology of the brand, because of which there is a feeling that the author under one description sums up several types of brands at once.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the author's three volumes on the subject of branding can definitely be called the literature for the MBA course. Both the style of writing of these books and the multifaceted coverage of the topic are all in favor of the fact that this three-volume book is an excellent example of such literature with all its pros and cons.
And yes, despite what I wrote above about the disadvantages I found in the book, the book is a must-read for all marketers and brand managers because there are simply no (or almost no) all-encompassing books on branding.
P.S. The book could definitely be cut in half.
November 4, 2018
http://imeducatingmyself.com/building...
If you’re looking for a book that will help you to learn how to build a brand – then I would definitely suggest you this book written by a professor David A. Aaker who is teaching Marketing at University of California – Berkeley. Building a brand is not something that is easy, and especially is not easy to build a brand and keep it running successfully for a long time. I have to say that this books has very technical approach on building a brand strategies and you’ll not be able to comprehend everything at once.
This book is divided into 11 chapters, and here’s a quick overview of those chapters:
What is a strong brand?
The Saturn Story
The brand identity system
Organizational associations
Brand personality
Identity implementation
Brand strategies over time
Managing brand system
Leveraging the brand
Measuring brand equity across Products & Markets
Organizing for brand building
If you’re looking for a book that will help you to learn how to build a brand – then I would definitely suggest you this book written by a professor David A. Aaker who is teaching Marketing at University of California – Berkeley. Building a brand is not something that is easy, and especially is not easy to build a brand and keep it running successfully for a long time. I have to say that this books has very technical approach on building a brand strategies and you’ll not be able to comprehend everything at once.
This book is divided into 11 chapters, and here’s a quick overview of those chapters:
What is a strong brand?
The Saturn Story
The brand identity system
Organizational associations
Brand personality
Identity implementation
Brand strategies over time
Managing brand system
Leveraging the brand
Measuring brand equity across Products & Markets
Organizing for brand building
January 12, 2014
Too much gyan!!
This book consists of various theories backed by examples. What I did not like was that most of the examples used in the book were never heard by me and so it was really difficult to relate to the model and understand.
This book consists of various theories backed by examples. What I did not like was that most of the examples used in the book were never heard by me and so it was really difficult to relate to the model and understand.
March 30, 2009
Very thorough and detailed. A good foundation in branding. The examples are outdated but the ideas and fundamentals are there.
May 14, 2014
A must read for all brand marketers.
January 26, 2023
Building Strong Brands is a book written by David Aaker, a renowned expert in the field of brand management. The book provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and building strong brands.
The book starts with an introduction to the concept of branding and the importance of building a strong brand for businesses. It then delves into the different elements that make up a strong brand, including brand identity, brand personality, and brand relationships.
Aaker then discusses the key strategies for building and managing a strong brand, including brand positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty. He also provides insights on how to measure the success of a brand and how to adapt to changes in the marketplace.
One of the strengths of the book is its practical approach, with a wide range of real-world examples and case studies used to illustrate the concepts discussed. Aaker also provides a variety of tools and templates that can be used to develop and implement brand management strategies.
Overall, Building Strong Brands is an essential guide for anyone working in brand management, marketing, or advertising. It provides a thorough understanding of the key concepts and strategies necessary for creating and managing successful brands and is an excellent resource for both experienced professionals and students of marketing.
The book starts with an introduction to the concept of branding and the importance of building a strong brand for businesses. It then delves into the different elements that make up a strong brand, including brand identity, brand personality, and brand relationships.
Aaker then discusses the key strategies for building and managing a strong brand, including brand positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty. He also provides insights on how to measure the success of a brand and how to adapt to changes in the marketplace.
One of the strengths of the book is its practical approach, with a wide range of real-world examples and case studies used to illustrate the concepts discussed. Aaker also provides a variety of tools and templates that can be used to develop and implement brand management strategies.
Overall, Building Strong Brands is an essential guide for anyone working in brand management, marketing, or advertising. It provides a thorough understanding of the key concepts and strategies necessary for creating and managing successful brands and is an excellent resource for both experienced professionals and students of marketing.
January 9, 2019
The book is good at descriptive analysis of different brand strategies and what different brands did. It's hard to be prescriptive and identify what to do at the time it's happening. Finally, the brand examples are stale, for example Saturn.
December 15, 2020
Although this is a well regarded book, but I find it boring and repetitive. I gave it a 3-stars mostly because I was involved in a branding project at work, which all these boring concepts came in handy.
February 6, 2025
While this book is considered a classic, I found it pretty dull and repetitive. I gave it three stars mainly because the information is actually useful, but honestly, it feels really outdated, even the examples. A shorter, updated version would be fantastic!
May 19, 2017
A must for someone in the marketing business. Period!
June 28, 2018
Sometimes too dogmatic
June 30, 2018
It was a little repetitive. I felt like I had gotten most of what I could have gotten out of it halfway through.
March 20, 2021
It is an excellent book which showed me strategies used in marketing. I also realised a slightly perverse way of treating brands as people - with their attitudes, personality traits, etc.
May 16, 2021
If to read only one lecture-material-like book about branding fundamentals then definetly this is the one!
December 5, 2022
A lot of this I was familiar with from college marketing classes but it was still a nice refresher.
December 11, 2022
Boring & outdated. Maybe I just don’t like the marketing segment of business too much.
January 9, 2023
The book has a set of great frameworks to think about enduring brand strategies. It will definitely help marketers to go beyond the product alone and think of brands holistically.
November 20, 2019
Indeed a very insightful and thorough book
April 29, 2016
Since it is aimed to brand managers it is quite boring to read, monotonuos and full of terms and definitions. However, even 20 years after publishing, it is still one of the essentials for brand strategy and education about brands. Must read.
February 3, 2008
BRANDING Different than Just MARKETING COMMUNICATION, BRANDING IS THE KEY SUCCESS FACTOR For SELLING
March 27, 2008
Quite a lot about building strong brands, and a new way to thin about the structure of organizations, but that was already back in 1997.
September 4, 2008
A good intro to branding, with all the superficial language and ideas one would expect from a book on this topic.
February 16, 2012
"Not bad, has some useful information but I really couldn't connect with the author's writing style!"
January 15, 2013
The best book about branding, after learning the 101 theory this is a must to understand how brands work.
November 22, 2013
This is a must read if you want to learn how to build a brand from the ground up.
Want to read
March 12, 2013nice
June 5, 2013
this book very helps me to write my final project. the theory is up-to-date and suitable for the students who have research in brand, especially for brand personality measurement.
October 24, 2013
Great book about the basics in branding.
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