Defending Your Brand: How Smart Companies use Defensive Strategy to Deal with Competitive Attacks

by Tim Calkins

Competitors takeany and every opportunitythey can to deride the dominate their opponents in the marketplace. While all companies strive to create innovative and aggresive campaigns to make gains int he market, the smart companies-the ones thatthrive- make sure to create a defense strategy that is just as strong, if not stronger to maintain the ground when push comes to shove. Indeed, a good defense is far more important that a good offense. If you fail trying to grow, you will miss your objectives. If you fail defending your business, you can lose everything. Here Calkins shows business how to create and maintain a defensive strategy using real life examples from major global companiesincluding: how to understand and get competitive intelligence; how to determine if your brand or company is at risk; how to create a defensive strategy; limiting risk and preventing a trial; understanding your own IP as a weapon - and much more. Every business leader needs to understand how to play defense and this book will teach leaders how to make sure their valuable brand is protected.

Genres: Business

306 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 30, 2017

About the author

Tim Calkins is business author, consultant and teacher. He helps individuals and companies communicate clearly and build strong brands.

He is Clinical Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, where he teaches courses including Marketing Strategy and Biomedical Marketing.

Tim works with major corporations around the world on strategy and branding issues through his firm Class 5 Consulting. Recent clients include Eli Lilly, Kraft Heinz and Hearst.

He is the author of books including Defending Your Brand and Breakthrough Marketing Plans.

Tim began his career at the consulting firm Booz Allen and Hamilton, where he worked on strategy and branding issues. He joined the marketing team at Kraft Foods in 1991. During his almost 11 years at Kraft, he led businesses including Miracle Whip, Taco Bell, A.1. steak sauce, Seven Seas and DiGiorno. While at Kraft he was responsible for the launch of more than two dozen new products.

He received his BA from Yale in 1987 and his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1991.

Tim lives in Chicago with his wife and three children. He loves to hike, canoe and ski.

Reviews

[hillstudycenter.wordpress.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a motivational book but one that lays bare the business fact that defense must be at the core of any business establishment.
Before I dive into the synopsis you may ask what a brand is. According to Wikipedia, a brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. A few examples are MTN Ghana and Vodafone Ghana as telecommunication brands. Lipton tea as a tea brand. CNN and BBC as news broadcasting brands. Successlink Consult as a travel and tour brand. Ghana International School and Harvard College as education brands and Samsung as a an electronic manufacturing brand.
SYNOPSIS
The moment you start reading the first few pages of this book, Tim impresses on readers that in the world of business, competition can't be be left out. Whether you are a big time company or a small/medium size business have it at the back of your mind that somebody or a company somewhere is planning on entering your kind of business. You must protect your position in the market against new entrants. A new entrant means a drop in your profits or market shares. Hence, the need for the need for defense strategies. Business defense includes everything a company does to react to competitive threats. He does excellent work to explain that whereas growth strategies include all the proactive steps taken to build your business such as advertising, new product introduction, cost reduction efforts, promotional offers, defensive strategies are your response to your competitor's moves.
There are not many books written on this topic because some of the tactics employed aren't supposed to be in the public domain. In this book, the author exposes all the strategies used by businesses to defend their brands from new entrants. I particularly appreciate how he puts the truth out that the main reason for defense strategy is to ensure that a competitor struggles and if possible leaves the market scene. He didn't mince words.
Reading this book is not cumbersome because of how he weaves in real life business establishment's examples to support every issue he raised. At a point the reader will have an a-ha! moment. This book is simply a pack of knowledge. You will be able to relate to it even if you aren't in the business field.
Interestingly, Tim states that this book is primarily for people who lead organizations, companies be it small or big, or a charitable church organization. But I see it as an oversight that he didn't mention teachers, married couples, health professionals and indeed any individual at all. I hold a personal belief that we are our own unique brands even as individuals and we must also master the art of defense because our whole being is a company and what we stand for is our brand that needs to be defended from intruders just as a lioness would her cubs.
On the other hand, I'm blown away by his presentation on the moral lessons learned from what happened between the movie rental company, Blockbuster, Netflix and Red box. In his quest to create awareness of the importance of defense strategies, he expatiates on the subject of financial challenges businesses might face and getting to know your competitor by gathering information. Social media also plays a key role here. He also advises that lawyers be consulted in areas which bother on state laws on business.
To wrap up, Defending Your Brand has not disappointed me at all. It has succeeded in exposing the various interesting, enlightening and sometimes shady tactics used by smart businesses to stay in their game.

[Zach S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book — not a common topic for business books, which makes it all the more interesting. Very relevant to my work, which is all the better!

[202 unknown · Rating 4 out of 5]

cho mình những ý tưởng, cảm hứng và thấy được vẻ đẹp của việc phòng thủ