Book Review
The Best of Branding: Best Practices in Corporate Branding
by James R. Gregory McGraw-Hill, October 2003, ISBN: 0071403299, $39.95, 288 pp.
RAYMOND PETTIT Longwoods International erpmetro1@earthlink.net
Jim Gregory believes in the power of brands. His firm, CoreBrand, has tracked the impact of branding communications on the bottom line for almost 15 years. This book is his attempt to present the basic principles of his CoreBrand measurement system (Part 1), the consulting approach he and his firm use in the brand building process (Part 2), and finally a series of basic principles of good branding based on case studies (Part 3). The book is aimed at a broad business audience. The value of the book is somewhat diminished for researchers and strategists because the description of the measurement of CoreBrand Power is not sufficiently detailed to allow a real technical assessment of its efficacy and validity. This is due mostly to the fact that this book is for the general business audience. I will detail later some technical measurement questions that arise, which may very well have good, solid answers, but are not to be found in the pages of this book. Part 2 is a very nice description of a traditional consulting approach used by many management consultancies to help improve business strategy and tactics. As a standalone, this section would be a terrific primer to use in applied MBA or executive education programs to demonstrate a solid, data driven approach to the art of consulting. Although the section could be characterized as self-serving because it merely describes what CoreBrand does, it is filled with accurate detail and good ideas, obviously enhanced by a talented, experienced team, especially Larry McNaughton, a talented and experienced strategist who is quoted extensively throughout. Part 3 presents case studies meant to exemplify principles of good branding and validate the CoreBrand measures. While the stories are extremely interesting and well written, the introduction of the CoreBrand measures appears to be forced and artificial. That is, the various measurement charts demonstrate unequivocally that “things don’t change too much” in the CoreBrand Power world.
Except for some extremely drastic exogenous events, such as 9/11, the charts generally come off looking like heart monitors that let us know that, indeed, the brand is still alive. The question is: Can the measure be used for diagnostic insight to help chart a brand course? Can the data be segmented or broken down to tell the brand manager or marketer where to put more (or less) money? Or, is CoreBrand Power simply reflecting the covariation of familiarity of the brand with its favorability (as measured in ratings surveys) in terms of a global, macro marketing value? But let’s return to Part 1 of the book and explore in more detail some of the technical questions that arise about the CoreBrand Power measurement system. Chapter 1 is a strong explication of the power of branding from, obviously, someone who believes it. While there are occasional overstatements, such as an overzealous comment ascribing some magic to brands that may seem naïve to some (“when the [brand] pieces fall into place, everything works better for everyone . . . ,” p. 7), this is a balanced and credible introduction that most would agree with about the importance of branding. When we hit Chapter 2, a number of questions may arise to the technically minded. For sake of efficiency in this review, I present these in a list: 1. On p. 8, Gregory states that advertising and communications may not directly affect ROI— yet later (p. 13), we find that “advertising is the single biggest drive of CoreBrand Power.” What this implies is that Gregory and his organization have isolated and identified something, called CoreBrand Power, that is an intervening variable between advertising and ROI (sales). The problem is, no research is presented in the book that shows us where this came from. If it is a tangible thing, what does CoreBrand Power look like? September 2005
DOI: 10.1017/S0021849905000371
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2. CoreBrand Power is defined in an additive equation. Two variables, “familiarity” and “favorability” of the brands in question, are rated using 5- and 4-point scales, respectively. This research is done via a yearly survey that goes out to 10,000 decision makers. (Are all 10,000 completed? We are not told.) The aggregate results are combined (added) to produce the CoreBrand Power score that is indexed for comparison purposes. Comparisons can be made across competitors and against “Peer Group” (a competitive set) over a yearly time frame. 3. Here is an instance where technical issues are not addressed in the book. The rating scales use a 5- and a 4-point scale to measure “familiarity” and “favorability,” respectively. Best practice research method would call the results of such a measurement into question due to “restriction in range” of the survey instrument. Simply put, the top and bottom ends of the scale are stunted in relation to the “real ratings” that could be assigned. The issue is that there is just not enough spread allowed for the scores to truly reflect what people feel and think. In this particular case, although one could argue that 4- and 5-point rating scales are standard in applied market research, this could become an issue because of the fact that CoreBrand is using the measures as if they achieve “interval” level in further quantitative analyses they appear to do. 4. Figure 2-2 presents quadrant maps for looking at competitive differences on the two elements of CoreBrand Power. If CoreBrand is using correspondence analysis (or perceptual mapping), the qualitative, categorical rating variables are indeed appropriate. But note, correspondence analysis is only an exploratory technique (it has no statistical
significance testing component) that allows visual exploration. The distances are arbitrarily scaled to show relative positions. 5. On p. 13, Gregory offers a common sense description of the relation “greater familiarity greater favorability.” This is reminiscent of the infamous Rosser Reeves Fallacy, which was identified by Millward Brown many years ago— basically, people who are frequent purchasers of the brand (suggesting frequent usage with the brand) will be more likely to see and note advertisements for the brand. The question here is: does CoreBrand Power control for this effect? 6. In fact, Figure 2-5 (p. 14) demonstrates the obvious conclusion that more advertising higher BrandPower score. Even with the qualifier that the “one who invests most effectively” will garner the edge in CoreBrand Power, it is left to the reader to figure what that means and how to achieve it. 7. Gregory presents an Advertising Efficiency Curve (Figure 2-6 on p. 15) that looks suspiciously like a logistic curve. A check of recent and traditional econometric texts support the conclusion that although the logistic function is frequently used as a general model of the advertising process, it has never been tested or justified empirically. 8. The final graphic (Figure 2-7 on p. 16) depicts the advertising return on investment. It essentially plots increasing advertising spending points against market valuation (in dollars). While this certainly makes sense, there is a tremendous gap in understanding how this analysis can be plausible. Then the question arises: can a simple correlation of total advertising spend and market valuation really reflect the measurement of return? There is a step from “what you spent for the advertising” to “what you got for the advertising.” The
“what you got” part really reflects the incremental sales (or change in market valuation, if that can be done?) that you can attribute to just advertising. The question is: what happened to the CoreBrand Power measure in this analysis? Although we are told that advertising does not directly affect ROI, what are we using in the ROI analysis? Advertising and Market Valuation. As mentioned at the outset, Part 3 presents a number of case studies to illustrate corporate best practices in branding. Again, these are very well written and interesting, although sometimes the tie in to CoreBrand is elusive. It is interesting to note that most of the case studies reflect a moment of critical change in the life/ history of a company. While it is clear that the CoreBrand measure reflects some of the ups and downs, we wonder if this is because they are just reflecting what decision makers are thinking at the time, or truly capturing a unique piece of intelligence not available somewhere else? A short chapter at the end appears to be an add-on, but does capture some business disasters that Gregory attempts to relate to CoreBrand Power. The issue here is that the cases are quite distinct and many external factors surround the failures that occurred (Enron is an example) and could be said to affect the “brand.” CoreBrand charts are not in evidence that much in this chapter. I find the negative case studies quite well written and informative, but do see little relation to the core message of the book. I would highly recommend this book to the general business reader, but would somehow wish to attach an addendum that gives the technical researcher a little more confidence about the measurement aspect of CoreBrand Power and its relationship to spending and market cap value. I could see a series of professional or
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industry workshops evolve from this book, as well as use in business and executive education courses, as needed, to build a sense of the importance of measuring and managing brands using data driven methods. All in all, a good effort.
................................................................................................ RAYMOND PETTIT is vice president of product development and intelligence at Longwoods International, a
global marketing consultancy. He is currently writing a new book commissioned by the Advertising Research Foundation and sponsored by Microsoft Corporation entitled Learning from Winners: What the David Ogilvy Awards Have Taught Us (to be released in Spring 2006). He works at the critical juncture of technology and marketing science to drive improved return on investment of marketing and advertising, and helps corporations foster innovation, accountability, and improved corporate financial performance. Dr. Pettit is
also the co-author of Market Research in the Internet Age (John Wiley & Sons). This is the first book to establish the necessity of and framework for integrating marketing science techniques, processes, and methods with new and enabling technologies. He received his bachelors degree from the University of Michigan and both masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois. He has been a quantitative and market research consultant and executive for a number of U.S. and European firms.
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