From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation: 3rd edition Inspired by the backdrop of the Alps and a view onto

lake Lugano, not to mention the pestering of Butterworth-Heinemann, the journey to provide a complete revision to every facet of From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation has been undertaken, including making over 2.5 hours of on-line video to back this book (http://www.elsevierdirect.com/product.jsp?isbn=9781856177733). Having completed this task, I offer some thoughts about brand management. Brands are multidimensional concepts that benefit numerous stakeholders in society. However, their amoebic nature makes their management demanding. If successfully managed the rewards to the diverse stakeholders can be significant. The first stage is therefore to identify the key stakeholders, appreciate the role the brand needs to play for each group then consider how the brand can best be developed to boundary span. Gone are the days of the consumer is king with many organisations recognising the power of stakeholders. Winning brands come from stables where there is clear agreement about the brand concept and a flexible approach to enacting the brand concept by different internal functions. Aligned through a core set of values that are not taught but are second nature, key actors play their parts in delivering a unified brand experience. Thriving brands have shaken off the need to have several tiers of supervisors quality checking brand enactment; staff automatically sense what is appropriate behaviour since they believe in the core values. A mantra commonly noted amongst world class brands is "tell me and I'll forget, involve me and I'll commit". Brand leaders abhor the notion of opportunism, since any road will take the brand anywhere (even over the precipice). Rather leading brands follow the guiding light of a brand vision. And it is a well defined brand vision, not a fluffy brand mission. Through a participative process, yet under inspirational leadership, staff map out their brand visions in terms of an exciting envisioned future, a purpose and core values. It is a brave leader who does this as Pandora's jar (or the mis-translation "box") is opened! Such leaders recognise that there is a wealth of innate talent amongst their staff who wish to make a difference in the world through their brand. As one visionary leader questioned, "when did you find someone who woke up and enthusiastically said I'm looking forward to doing yet more bad work today?". Recall the Athenian doctrine whereby children were continually reminded that at their funeral people needed to know how had they left Athens a better place. How many brands meet this criteria? Ever wondered why, when travellers are faced with two flights going about the same time to the same destination, one airline is more popular? No its not the aircraft' technical characteristics and they are both safe and fast airlines. The differentiator is the corporate culture. What travellers get is a generic, however how they get the benefit can become a key brand motivator. Successful brands are characterised by welcome and relevant organisational cultures. These are not static organisational cultures, but rather are cultures that evolve to reflect the dynamic nature of markets. IBM and O2 are but two corporate brands that understand the power from a relevant, aligned and evolving organisational culture. So if brands are amoebic concepts, how is it possible to grow and sustain them? There is no simple answer, however rather than blood, sweat and tears, winning brands are characterised by well conceived strategic brand plans. Why strategic? Because a long term perspective is adopted, a pan-company approach is followed and corporate resources are being used to leverage core competencies and organisational culture in a bid to grow stakeholder value. A model of the strategic process of growing and sustaining brands has been developed in this book. This has stood the test of time and in this new edition has been more firmly grounded in the literature and brought to life through numerous examples. The book is also supported by over two and a half hours of on-line videos from Oxford Learning Lab (http://www.elsevierdirect.com/product.jsp?isbn=9781856177733). I hope you enjoy! Leslie de Chernatony Professor of Brand Marketing Universit della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland and Aston Business School, UK