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many challenges. This is becomingincreasingly relevant in an era of

unprecedented change, upheaval and

uncertainty. This change is strategic,

unlike the incremental change of more

predictable times, and therefore re-

quires a strategic response. Brand

building is exactly such a response. If

successful, it can be the strongest

weapon in a companys armory and the

best guarantee of corporate survival.

The challenge that lies ahead is that of

change management.And by page 4, were invited to join

in a cataloguing of worldwide changes

to marketing:

the breakdown of market bound-

aries;

globalisation and the development

of global brands;

increasing market fragmentation;

product diversity and shorter life

cycles; greater customer sophistication;

digital business;

economic instability and market

volatility.

So this book flies, and yet, at the

same time, when you read it you

will continually pick up useful ad-

vice whether your brain is looking for

This book exceeded my expectationswhich were mainly about redressing

the balance on geographical origins of

brand case studies. Our literature suffers

from being far too US centric. This

imbalance is unfortunate for several

reasons including:

Living in the USA for the last 2

years has taught me how atypical

the US consumer is of any other I

have met in 25 countries that I have

worked. From the oldest brand models

(which assumed brands were adver-

tising led) to the newest e-brand

models, theres a huge share of voice

reflecting the culture of corporate

America and the case theories of its

business schools. These powerful

systems shouldnt be unquestion-

ingly exported as being de facto

paradigms for local organisational

excellence or social value.

My expectations were exceeded be-

cause this book unlike most on the

brand which start with chapters on

advertising and marketing communica-

tions opens up from the very

beginning on the leadership impor-

tance of branding. Here we are on

pages 12: Strong brands endure

HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1350-231X BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 8, NO. 1, 7784 SEPTEMBER 2000 79

Branding in Asia: The creation,development and management of

Asian brands for the global marketby Paul Temporal

John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York; 2000; ISBN 0-471-83576-5; 261pp; hardback;

$29.95

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characteristic or value. It is

important that employees are

informed of the corporate

personality and the reason for it,

and why the behaviours included in

the definitions are so important to

the branding process;

individual level: every employeefrom the CEO downward must

attempt to live the brand personality

in the job that he or she does. The

reason for this is simple an

employee may understand the new

corporate personality and general

descriptions attached to it, but what

he or she really wants to know is

what it means for his or her

particular job. Above all, the cus-

tomer has to experience the brandthrough every employee.

Training is an integral part of achieving

good performance on brand values.

However well defined the brand values

are, staff may need to learn new skills

in order to perform well. It is impor-

tant to look at each value and decide

what these skills are. A fruitful way to

practical or academic stimulation. For

example, the book closes with an ap-

pendix of very worthwhile brand exer-

cises, and it resonates with case studies,

24 in all. Each case study ends with a

summary of that brands strengths. The

Table shows a partial compilation of

these strengths which I have made toillustrate the scope of this book and

indeed of brand change leadership.

This book will be good for you

whether this is the first one you read on

branding, or as in my case the twenty-

first, including two of my own.

For example, I learnt a lot from

Temporals consistently strong advice

on brand values. Heres just one ex-

tract. In defining brand values, it is not

good enough to simply select the cor-porate brand personality characteristics

and inform everyone they now ex-

ist. Personality characteristics must be

defined at two distinct levels:

company-wide level: so that

employees can see how they fit into

the vision and mission of the

organisation, and understand each

80 HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1350-231X (2000) BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 8, NO. 1, 7784 SEPTEMBER 2000

Table 1: Some brand strengths audited by Paul Temporal

Founders or CEOs vision

Leadership teams brand passionPersistent attention to brand culture

Living the vision, mission and values

Obsessive brand guardianship

Choosing the right partners

Strategic positioning

Emotional and aspirational positioning strategy

Brand analysis and implementation

Cost Leadership

Quality product

Value for money

Reliably high service standards

Global and local adaptation

Long-term brand investment

Consumer focus

Customer experience focus

Multi-usage created by strong target userUnderstanding of market segments

Differentiation

Innovation

Speed of response

Pre-emptive symbolism

Brand name

Unique personality backed by the brand

experience

Excellent animation in communicating brand

values

Good use of PR in brand building

Location choices

Heritage

Professionalism

ConsistencyAuthenticity

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Organisational implications en-

couraging openness, honesty;

strengthening coaching, counsell-ing; training in interpersonal skills;

developing teamwork.

If this book has any weaknesses, I

havent been able to spot them, apart

from one that goes back to the

geographical issue. Pauls Asia seems to

be largely the South East, and its urban

consumers. Dont expect to find very

much on China or India, or on the

rural majority whose lot the futurecorporate citizens of Asia will need to

work a lot harder on.

Chris Macrae

Editorial Board

(e-mail webn007@easynet.co.uk)

do this is by analysing the behaviour of

staff who have been identified to be

performing to a very high standard onone value. Look at the critical incidents

that have happened to that person

when he or she has to bring that value

into action; find out how that person

did it. Also interview people who

knew about the incident.

As an example, the following is the

results of a series of interviews with the

employees of an Asian bank on the

value of caring:

Personal skills required show-

ing empathy; emotional resilience;

suspending judgement; listening;

giving positive and negative feed-

back; self-discipline; openness and

honesty; combining formality with

informality;

HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1350-231X BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 8, NO. 1, 7784 SEPTEMBER 2000 81

BOOK REVIEWS