I recently finished reading The Brand Bubble by John Gerzema and Ed LeBar and I throughly recommend
it if you have any interest at all in the future of branding. There is no doubt that part of the rationale for the book is to promote Young and Rubicam's BrandAsset® Valuator but there is certainly nothing wrong with that, particularly when it is a source of such rich data.
Based on their analysis of this data Gerzema and Lebar argue that there is another $4 trillion dollar bubble in the global economy as a result of the fact that the financial markets valuation of brands is fundamentally out of kilter with the value placed on these brands by their consumers. This is an intelligent and very well supported argument.
Nevertheless, from my perspective the most interesting aspect of the book is the authors analysis of the attributes of those brands who are creating sufficient consumer value to justify their significant financial brand valuations. This analysis leads the authors to conclude very convincingly that a brand is not so much a position as a direction and that it is the energy and movement around this direction that creates value for the consumer. This is something that resonates very strongly with me and reinforces my view that an over emphasis on brand strategy at the complete expense of tactical marketing initiatives, something that is surprisingly common, can be detrimental to a brands development. In my view tactics and strategy are equally important and fundamentally complimentary from a branding perspective as the success of brands like 42 Below clearly demonstrate.
Overall,The Brand Bubble is an important and thought provoking book that definitely sits in my top 5 marketing books of recent years.
