Brand Manners: How to Create the Self-confident Organisation to Live the Brand Book

In a business environment increasingly dominated by brand awareness and customer service, how do organisations ensure that the brand they have spent millions creating is reinforced at every step of the customer relationship? Unlike many business tomes that focus on economic models or business school theories, Brand Mannersrecommends that organisations create a close relationship between corporate strategy--tactical business decisions--and branding--the way that your company's people deal with each other, with partners and with customers. It's a deceptively simple idea, and the book's arguments are complex, though accessibly written. Pringle and Gordon take a step-by-step approach to ensuring that people '"live the brand"--in other words, act in a manner that reinforces the values that marketing has led the customers to expect. The book's ideas are brought to life through a series of persuasive case histories, including that of UK supermarket chain Tesco, which has seen profits increase by 70% to £955 million last year. This kind of result, the book argues, is a result of consistent marketing, staff training, customer service and investment in new services within the same brand. The fact that many of the case histories featured here are well covered in the business press--Tesco, Virgin, Orange--shows perhaps how few companies have really succeeded in creating an holistic brand. And matters are getting worse, the book reports. While companies have seized upon the opportunity to use Internet technology to cut costs, many have lost the ability to present their brand effectively. In call centres, for example, staff are twice as likely as the rest of the organisation to suffer serious psychiatric problems--with obvious implications for customer service. This is where the book's many charts, hit lists and the later chapters' summarised action points come into their own. Brand Mannerswon't enable you to create a brand from scratch, but it might just help to protect and revive the one you already have. --Sally WhittleRead More