Brand Aid: An Easy Reference Guide to Solving Your Toughest Branding Problems and Strengthening Your Market Position

Citation

Goldsmith, R.E. (2004), "Brand Aid: An Easy Reference Guide to Solving Your Toughest Branding Problems and Strengthening Your Market Position", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 64-64. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610420410523867

The subject of branding is attracting increasing interest in today's hyper‐competitive marketplace. Consequently, many new books have appeared that advise managers on branding strategy. A recent addition to this wave of advice is Brad VanAuken's Brand Aid. VanAuken is a former vice‐president of marketing for Element K, an e‐learning company, and the director of brand management and marketing at Hallmark Cards. He is currently founder and president of BrandForward, Inc. (http://www.brandforward.com) a consulting firm specializing in brand building, Internet branding, brand positioning, brand equity measurement, and brand extension strategy.

Brand Aid is not a narrative account of “how we build brand X into the powerhouse it is today;” nor is it a textbook. Instead, VanAuken presents a didactic overview of the brand management process that includes topics such as designing, building, and leveraging the brand. These accounts clearly explain the concepts at work in brand management and use a variety of examples to illustrate how successful companies manage their brands. The reader is given recommendations on how to conceptualize what a brand's identity will be, how to name the brand, how to advertise it, and how to motivate consumers to select it. These discussions include much of the full brand armamentarium. The book is divided into eight sections totaling 22 chapters with the last section containing three appendices. This sequence of topics is logical and is likely to reflect the timing of the typical brand management decisions.

As part of this presentation, Brand Aid includes “Did You Know?” inset boxes scattered in the text presenting specific material (for example, “Suggestive brand names assist with recall of brand benefits suggested by the names but inhibit recall of other subsequently advertised brand benefits.”) These provide interesting and intriguing material, much like the factoids found in magazines and TV news programs. Also included are specific blueprints in the form of checklists at the end of each chapter whereby a manager can evaluate his or her progress in each stage of the brand management process. Use of these blueprints requires a meticulous attention to detail and so would be most useful either to real brand managers or students tasked with preparing a brand strategy as a class assignment. They might also be useful for instructors who need to lecture on brand management or lead class discussions. They provide a systematic and exhaustive view of the brand management process, giving insight into major themes and activities that must be performed to create a successful brand.

Problems and solutions associated with measuring brand equity are discussed, as are use of market research to guide the branding process. Separate chapters toward the end of Brand Aid also discuss such issues as the relationships between organizational size and age with brand management, legal issues, and common brand problems. When one is through, one feels as if every aspect of branding has been discussed, analyzed, and broken down into a set of bullet points and a checklist.

The book ends with appendices containing the brand audit, additional brand resources, and a Brand Management Quiz. There is a link to the American Management Association Web page, http://www.amacombooks.org/brandaid, where a Brand Aid Brand Management Quiz appears. Brand Aid is not a straightforward narrative account and thus does not make easy reading. Its chapters consist of a detailed mixture of text, examples, bullet points and check lists. The examples are well chosen and enlightening, but the emphasis is always on applying lessons from others’ experience and the author's recommendations to a specific brand. Managers have a variety of branding books to choose from. How helpful these are is open to question. For the non‐manager, books such as this give valuable insight into the demands of brand management. This might be valuable to instructors who need to explain to students what branding is all about. Researchers also could profit from this book as it suggests many questions that could form the start of academic studies on branding and consumer behavior. The focus is always on the practical and applied, never the abstract. Brand Aid could be a useful reference tool and can be recommended, provided one is aware of its unique makeup and presentation style.