Brand Lands, Hot Spots & Cool Spaces
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his book is a very enjoyable and stimulating tour round some of the success stories from the world of branding. Author Matt Haig acknowledges that there doubtlessly will be objections to some of the brands contained within what he has chosen as his world’s top 100 brands, while defending his choice on the basis that the spectrum of brands covered allows for vivid demonstration of some of the common themes that characterise durably successful brands. Haig puts brands and branding in the context of wider society by stating that through the invention of a new product category or the radical change of an old one, a brand becomes more than a machine for making money; it becomes an influencer on society, changing the nature of everyday life. ‘Brand Royalty’ consists of a series of 100 vignettes, each easily digestible at an average of three or four pages’ length, summarised with a ‘Secrets of Success’ list of bullet points. Of course such brevity can lead to superficiality, as in the case of the BMW vignette where the secrets of success are given as ‘Definition: A BMW defines its owner. It says the owner is likely to be wealthy, adrenalin-seeking, competitive, driven and looking for an
‘‘ultimate’’ experience’, and ‘Focus: Although BMW has made the odd mistake of moving too far up- or downmarket, it has generally kept the kind of tight focus necessary for any corporate brand’. Although these observations may be somewhat trite, the vast majority of the cases discussed in the book are done so in an extremely incisive and entertaining manner. For the 17 chapters that comprise the book, Haig has used a taxonomy that categorises brands in various ways, for example, ‘Innovation brands’ such as Adidas, Sony, Hoover and Toyota; ‘Pioneer brands’ such as Gillette, Kleenex, Wrigley and Heinz; ‘Distraction brands’ such as MTV, Harry Potter and Disney; ‘Streamlined brands’ such as Cosmopolitan, Nokia and Toys ‘R’ Us; ‘Muscle brands’ such as IBM, Wal-Mart and Microsoft; ‘Distinction brands’ such as Evian, Duracell and Heineken; ‘Status brands’ such as Rolex, Courvoisier, Burberry and Gucci; ‘People brands’ such as David Beckham, Jennifer Lopez and Oprah Winfrey; and ‘Responsibility brands’ such as Ben & Jerry’s, Cafedirect and Seeds of Change. This taxonomy gives a solid structure and flow to the book that otherwise would be a haphazard collection of anecdotes and analysis.
䉷 HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1479-1803 BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 13, NO. 2, 167–174 NOVEMBER 2005
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BOOK REVIEWS
The opening vignette in the book focuses on Adidas, tracing the background of the company, its relationship to Nike and, as with all the other brands featured in the book, a summary of what Haig perceives to be the secrets of the brand’s success. For Adidas, one success factor is identified as the way that Adidas keeps its history alive through its sports heritage division. Haig observes that far from making the brand seem stuffy and outdated, its ‘old-school’ ranges are considered the most fashionable among the hip-hop community. The following vignett
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