The Brand Bubble

Foreword By Peter Stringham, CEO, Young & Rubicam Group.

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION.

1 Tulipmania and Infl ated Brands.

2 Can You Say "Irresistible"?

3 Wall Street, Meet Main Street.

4 The Postmodern Craving for Creativity.

5 Welcome to ConsumerLand.

PART TWO: APPLICATION.

6 Stage One--Exploration: Performing an Energy Audit.

Case study: LEGO--Play Well.

7 Stage Two--Distillation: Identifying the Energy Core.

Case study: Virgin Atlantic--Brilliant Basics, Magic Touches.

8 Stage Three--Ignition: Creating an Energized Value Chain.

Case study: Xerox--The Energy Inside.

9 Stage Four--Fusion: Becoming an Energy-Driven Enterprise.

Case study: Mumbai Tiffi n Box Suppliers--Human Energy.

10 Stage Five--Renewal: Active Listening and Constant Refreshing of Brand Meaning.

Case study: UNIQLO--Seeing Farther.

Epilogue: A Brand May Be Famous, But Is It Creating Return for Shareholders?

Notes.

Acknowledgments.

The Authors.

Index.

John Gerzema is Chief Insights Officer for Young & Rubicam Group. One of the earliest founders of account planning in American advertising agencies, John has designed brand strategies for clients for almost twenty--fi ve years, guiding campaigns to international strategic and creative recognition that resulted in The One Show Best of Show award, numerous EFFIE's and several gold lions from The Cannes Advertising Festival. Prior to joining Y & R, Gerzema oversaw the international network for Fallon, and founded offices in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sâo Paulo. He holds a master's degree in integrated marketing from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a B.S. in marketing from The Ohio State University.

Ed Lebar is CEO of BrandAsset Consulting Group. Ed manages BrandAsset Consulting around the world. He has helped grow BrandAsset Valuator into the largest brand model and database in the world, which now includes input from over 500,000 customers on 38,000 brands across 48 countries through 250 studies.

Before his career in marketing and advertising, Lebar was a professor of economics at CCNY and Finch College. He holds advanced degrees in economics from NYU and the University of Denver, and a B.A. from Syracuse University.

"These authors both hold senior positions at Young & Rubicam (Y&R), part of the largest ad agency holding company in the world, WPP Group. Their book sounds an alarm based on a gap in value between how consumers and investors perceive brands. The authors have a proprietary research tool that they use to measure value, and they've found that investors reward companies with greater brand awareness, even if consumers don't see much utility. The book presents recommendations on how to close the gap between consumer and company perceptions. Many other books present theories about branding. Al and Laura Ries's The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding offers a hands-on approach to branding, focusing on what works and not necessarily why, while Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart's Branded Customer Service attacks the problem of branding from the view of the customer experience. David A. Aaker and Erich Joachimsthaler's Brand Leadership's more quantitative approach and academic perspective can be compared most closely to this new book. The Brand Bubble is appropriate for a business school or corporate library and will be useful to marketers as well as investors."
--Stephen E. Turner, Turner Devaughn Network, Abington, PA (Library Journal, September 15, 2008)

"...worth reading" (Financial Times, October 23rd 2008)

"The authors have access to one of the richest longitudinal marketing databases in the world...If consumer and investor perceptions of brand value have indeed been diverging, a huge reassessment of the value of brand-owning companies may still be ahead." --Alan Mitchell, Financial Times (October 23, 2008)

"The book is a wake-up call for marketers who think more branding per se will save them." --John T. Landry, Harvard Business Review(November 2008)

"Through extensive consumer research and analysis, the authors propose a startling fact: that despite rising valuations, consumers are falling out of love with many of the brands they buy. Use this book to learn how