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 from 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 and sustaining 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