Strategic brand management

Brand marketing is of considerable interest to managers, consultants and academics. Some of the reasons for this include the significant worth of this intangible asset, its value as a strategic device, as a basis for recruiting and aligning staff and for encouraging long term repeat buying behaviour.  Brand managers used to place considerable emphasis on differentiating a unique offering through a welcomed promise that met the opportunities presented by market gaps.  However, managers now recognise the importance of their employees in delivering the brand promises.  As such firms are adopting a more balanced perspective, directing branding activity both inside and outside their organisations.  This elective will adopt both an internal and external perspective on strategically building brands.

One of the challenges managing this intangible asset is that there are diverse views about the nature of brands and thus one theme of this course is enabling students to appreciate these interpretations along with their implications for coherently delivering a brand promise. The importance of emotion and authentic experiences will be addressed as contributors to sustainable success. Being able to justify a price premium and a future income stream necessitates understanding the topic of added value which will be explored. Brand building involves long term investment to meet a stretching brand vision, adopting a pan-company outlook, understanding core competencies, identifying and prioritising opportunities, engaging staff commitment and leveraging advantages from a unique organisational culture.  As such this elective will adopt a strategic approach, showing how this can be used to build and sustain brands, drawing on several disciplines. It will conclude by discussing how creativity can be used to leverage small budgets to capitalise on brand opportunities.

Assessment
There are two assignments (equal weighting of marks) and a 2.5 hour closed book exam to assess this course.
The course assessment will be 60% exam and 40% coursework.

Textbook
L. de Chernatony (2010) From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation (Oxford : Butterworth-Heinemann).
NB. The third edition of this book is the core text, not earlier editions