The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis In Brand Value and How to Avoid It

by John Gerzema, Edward Lebar, Peter Stringham (Foreword by)

How to use brands to gain and sustain competitive advantageCompanies today face a dilemma in marketing. The tried-and-true formulas to create sales and market share behind brands are becoming irrelevant and losing traction with consumers. In this book, Gerzema and LeBar offer credible evidence--drawn from a detailed analysis of a decade's worth of brand and financial data using Y&R's Brand Asset Valuator (BAV), the largest database of brands in the world--that business is riding on yet another bubble that is ready to burst--a brand bubble. While most managers still see metrics like trust and awareness as the backbone of how brands are built, Gerzema asserts they're dead wrong--these metrics do not add to increased asset value. In fact, by following them, they actually hasten the declining value of their brands.

Using a five-stage model, "The Brand Bubble" reveals how today's successful brands--and tomorrow's--have an insatiable appetite for creativity and change. These brands offer consumers a palpable sense of movement and direction thanks to a powerful "energized differentiation." Gerzema reveals how brands with energized differentiation achieve better financial performance than traditional brands have. Plus, Gerzema helps readers develop energized differentiation in their own brands, creating consumer-centric and sustainable organizations.

Genres: Business

252 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2008

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this lively vokume, John Gerzema and Ed Lebar explain that Young & Rubicam's proprietary BrandAsset®Valuator (BAV) is "an empirical model that, based on global consumer research, is designed to explain how brands grow, decline, and recover." Of course, some brands never grow; other brands grow and then decline; and still other, fewer each year, grow, decline, and then recover. Gerzema and Lebar assert that a developing problem could drive down valuation multiples and stock prices around the world, if not corrected. "We've concluded from a decade's worth of brand and financial data that business is riding on yet another bubble: the brand bubble." After it bursts, which brands will survive? Those that are "irresistible" because they offer to consumers "a palpable sense of movement and direction." However different these brands may be in other respects, what do they share in common? Gerzema and Lebar call it "Energized Differentiation." The material is organized within two Parts: Chapters 1-5 provide the reader with a comprehensive frame of reference (e.g. the attributes of energy infusing irresistibility and the new consumer behaviors, expectations, and mind-set they call "ConsumerLand"; Chapters 6-10 examine each of a five-stage process by which to develop an irresistible brand as well as how to establish and then sustain a consumer-centric organization in support of it, using that brand as an organizing principle.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Gerzema and Ed Lebar have written an exceptionally clear, pertinent book about the declining value of brands and why the world’s largest brand names are in flux. Using proprietary data, the authors vividly explain how brand clutter has created a marketing bubble. Since brands are such an important part of any corporation’s value, the authors contend, the total valuation of this brand bubble will dwarf the mortgage bubble. The authors identify and analyze the branding problem, and then make recommendations about how to solve it. The book’s one drawback is that it becomes repetitive, especially in the later sections. Still, the authors’ timely, compelling argument should resonate with branding professionals. getAbstract recommends this book to marketers who want a better understanding of how lack of creativity makes brands deteriorate, and of how they might be able to resurrect the brands that are still salvageable.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good brand book though I doubt it is terribly useful for those in marketing. It provides some pretty good feedback/suggestions for investors and people generally interested in the role that brands play in our lives. Although not a critical read for investors, I think that most people could pick up a few interesting investing tidbits by reading this book.

[Kate Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Obviously a bit dated, but was fairly accurate in predicted changing consumer behaviors. Very prescient in understanding that consumers were becoming more sophisticated and branding needed to assume more consumer intelligence.

[Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book depends upon the evidently proprietary formula for brand value from Young & Rubicam. It is hard to comprehend the book without knowing the formula.

[Adnan]

Abandoned...