The Brand Bubble

by John Gerzema, Edward Lebar

(Jossey-Bass , 240 Pages)

Product Description

This book lays out credible evidence that points to yet another impending bubble. One which, if not corrected, could drive down valuation multiples and stock prices around the world. The authors have concluded from a detailed analysis of a decade’s worth of brand and financial data that business is riding on yet another bubble. A brand bubble.

The traditional business models and strategies marketers have used for generations simply no longer work. While most managers still see metrics like trust and awareness as the backbone of how brands are built, analysis shows they’re dead wrong—these metrics do not add to increased asset value. In fact, by following them, marketers are led astray, actually hastening the declining value of their brands.

The authors lay out a clear path to jumpstart the power of branding again. They show the brands that are succeeding already – and will succeed in the future – have an insatiable appetite for creativity and a questing spirit for change. They understand differentiation and how to evolve it. What they have is a more powerful form of differentiation. These brands offer consumers a palpable sense of movement and direction and contain energized differentiation that drive future corporate financial performance far greater than the traditional brands that have formerly dominated the market.

The Integrity Dividend

by Tony Simons

(Jossey-Bass, 256 Pages)

“If you walk the talk, practice what you preach, stand up for your beliefs, put your money where your mouth is, follow through on your promises…do what you say you will do…your business will make more money. You will also be more trusted, more powerful, more personally successful, have more loyal and committed people, and be more at peace with yourself.”—From the Foreword by Jim Kouzes

Corporate and government scandals continue to deepen our mistrust of leaders. While credibility is the foundation of effective leadership, most leaders struggle, and sometimes fail, to align their words and their actions. Now for the first time, leadership expert Tony Simons has measured the bottom-line value of business leaders who live by their word and actually do what they say they are going to do. In The Integrity Dividend Tony Simons shows how leaders’ personal integrity drives the profitability and overall success of their organization. This groundbreaking book is based in on solid research and reveals that businesses led by managers of higher integrity enjoy deeper employee commitment, lower turnover, superior customer service, and substantially higher profitability. This improved performance is the integrity dividend.

Simons conducted dozens of focus groups, surveyed thousands of employees, collected financial and operational numbers, and interviewed over 100 senior executives and executive coaches. The book lays out the research clearly and provides proven tools for managing common integrity challenges. It offers guidance for building individual credibility and for creating an organizational culture of integrity and accountability. Throughout, Simons uses real-world insight and stories drawn from senior executives, line managers, and coaches.

The Integrity Dividend is a fresh view of leadership at a time when it is most needed.

Relevance

by Tim Manners

(Portfolio, 224 Pages)

This book goes on sale September 18, 2008.

Branding expert Tim Manners says that marketers should give up the flashy practices and groupthink of the last fifty years--the demographics-driven strategies, fashion-obsessed things, and old-fashioned advertising. Today's customers don't care about those things. All they want to know is, "Why should I care? What's in it for me?"

Saving the World at Work

by Tim Sanders

(Currency, 224 Pages)

From Publishers Weekly
The Responsibility Revolution is underway, and it's challenging the importance of the bottom line, argues Sanders (Love Is the Killer App), former CSO of Yahoo. Both consumers and employers have turned away from price consciousness to demand that companies make a difference to society through their products, manufacturing methods, environmental efforts and community outreach. According to the author, casual consumers now represent the minority; mindful consumers have brought in a new value system, paying as much attention to a company's environmental and social policies as to its pricing structures. Companies that do not clean up their acts will be left in the dust, losing customers who want their money to go toward good causes and employees who place more importance on green factors and job satisfaction than pay scale. Through success stories like Horst Rechelbacher, the brains behind the ecologically sound cosmetics company Aveda, and Lee Scott's greening of Wal-Mart in 2004, Sanders makes a compelling argument for the necessity for businesses to appeal to their customers' hearts as well as their wallets. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Little Book That Saves Your Assets

by David M. Darst

(John Wiley & Sons Inc, 224 Pages)

While it's difficult to outperform the market year in and year out, some people continue to earn substantial market-beating returns from their portfolios. How do they do it? With the help of savvy asset allocation strategies, such as those developed by author David Darst, one of the world's leading thinkers in the field of asset allocation. Now, with The Little Book That Saves Your Assets, Darst discusses how readers can invest like the rich by implementing this proven approach in their everyday investment endeavors.

Based on brilliant thinking and innovative research, this book is crisp, clear, and down-to-earth. It explores both the art and science of asset allocation and makes this crucial method accessible to anyone--investors and professionals alike--all of whom can benefit from asset allocation strategies. Along the way, Darst details the importance of spreading assets among uncorrelated classes, and building a portfolio that can beat the market at best, and match it at worst. Page by page, he describes the principles behind this process and stresses the substantial investment returns that the right mix of stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, gold, commodities, and other assets can bring to the average portfolio.

Wealthy individuals and financial institutions have successfully used this strategy to achieve excellent returns in a variety of markets. And with The Little Book That Saves Your Assets, these same strategies can now be understood and used by anyone.

Unleashing Innovation

by Nancy Tennant Snyder, Deborah L. Duarte

(Jossey-Bass Inc Pub, 0 Pages)

In 1999, Whirlpool was undergoing a company-wide reorganization to meet the demands of the post-globalization marketplace. To succeed in executing their transformative Brand-Focused Value-Creation strategy, Whirlpool needed to be both operationally excellent and innovative.

In publications such as BusinessWeek and Fast Company, the media have celebrated Whirlpool's transformation into a leading-edge innovator and Nancy Tennant Snyder's role as chief innovation officer. Ten years after this remarkable transformation, Unleashing Innovation tells the inside story of one of the most successful innovation turnarounds in American history. Nancy Tennant Snyder and coauthor Deborah L. Duarte reveal how Whirlpool undertook one of the largest change efforts in corporate history and show how innovation was embedded throughout the company, which ultimately led to bottom-line results.

Unleashing Innovation is filled with illustrative examples from Whirlpool and Whirlpool's cutting-edge brands including Jenn-Air, Bauknecht, KitchenAid, and Brastemp. Snyder and Duarte reveal the inner workings of Whirlpool's innovation machine, a framework that creates consistent and profitable innovation by involving all of Whirlpool's employees, and they debunk the myth that innovation comes only from the geniuses at the top. Rather than a cookie-cutter "how to" manual, Unleashing Innovation shows what happens when an organization creates a machine that involves everyone and fosters an environment that puts the emphasis on "learning and creating, dreaming, the mythology of heroes, and the spirit of winning." Unleashing Innovation shows how the engine of its innovation can be adapted to run in any business of any size and captures the steps the company took along the way, the key learnings, the tools used, the challenging setbacks, and the critical successes.

BrandDigital

by Allen P. Adamson

(Palgrave Macmillan, 256 Pages)

In his best-selling book, BrandSimple: How the Best Brands Keep it Simple and Succeed, Allen Adamson explained, in a straightforward manner, how powerful brands are built. Adopting the same engaging style in BrandDigital: Simple Ways Top Brands Succeed in the Digital World, he explains that in the fast accelerating digital marketplace the basic principles of building a powerful brand have not changed (as some may think) but, rather, have been magnified. He clearly demonstrates that in an environment where everything is visible, audible, and sharable, brand professionals have an unprecedented opportunity to learn more about their customers than ever before, making it possible to deliver experiences that reinforce customer relationships – and brand equity – more successfully than ever before.

Based on over 100 interviews with top branding executives on both the corporate side and the agency side of the table, Adamson makes his point by using case studies from companies including Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Nikon, Ameriprise, Burger King, PepsiCo, and General Mills. Citing lessons learned from these professionals, he provides example after example of why, in the digital arena, it’s never been more important to gain significant insights about consumers, to establish a simple and compelling brand promise based on these insights, and to make good on the brand promise through interactions that are as memorable as they are credible. He puts into proper context all the talk about Google, YouTube, Second Life, social networks, and blogs, and makes clear their role in the branding process. Chock full of stories from the frontlines of branding, Adamson puts into plain words how the best companies are taking advantage of digital technology and the behavior it generates to build more powerful bonds with their customers, and stronger, more positive associations with their brands.

For more information, please visit www.branddigital.com.