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“Building a strong consumer brand has always been a monumental task, but, never more so than today, with the explosion of technology, innovation and communication. Paul Temporal has taken a pragmatic and credible approach to suggesting how this effort can be tackled, through his reiteration of basic branding principles, to his reliving case studies of companies which point the way forward. Along the way, he reminds us that branding is all about building a long-lasting and meaningful relationship with consumers.”
- Aaron Boey, Vice-President of Marketing, Philips Consumer Electronics, Asia-Pacific & Middle East
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The Battle For High-tech Cyber-branding
Given that everybody’s a dog on the Internet, those with stronger brands stand out from those without. Thus, a book that shows just how important brands are on the Net, and how some of the big names began creating them for the cyber world, should make a compelling read.
This one does. “This book looks at branding in the digital age,” the authors write in the preface. “What applies from the past, and what new rules are unfolding that will create the success stories of tomorrow.”
There’s no doubt brands sell. Just ask Nokia, Philips, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Virgin, Amazon.com and etrade.com – their case studies are peppered all across the book. The authors also take a peep into how an entirely new firm – Agilent Technologies, a spin-off from HP – is positioning itself and creating a whole new brand globally.
The authors themselves have strong credentials, apart from being based in Singapore. Dr Temporal has been consulting on brands and management for about two decades now, and has authored three books on brands – Corporate Charisma, Strategic Positioning and Branding in Asia.
Lee Kwok Cheong is CEO of National Computer Systems (NCS) and is also adjunct associate professor at the Business School of NTU. He has educational qualifications from MIT, Berkeley, Standford and the University of California.
“Many traditional brands are lagging behind the Internet brands,” they write. “They appear to be slow to respond to the Internet challenge. If traditional brands do not shape up, they will be left behind. They must overcome the problems of channel conflicts and price differentials that they face with online and offline retail strategies.”
That’s easier said than done. The authors recognise that, as well as what really matters in the new corporate game. “What we really want to know, however, is the value of future earnings stemming from the brand’s pact with its consumers. So, it is becoming more common for economic use valuations to be based on the discounted value of future brand earnings.”
The book makes for an easy read, and has a good number of real-life examples of companies that have made the plunge into launching a cyberbrand. However, the book could have done with a few case studies on companies that failed to make its mark – and why. Otherwise, it is a neat textbook on how and why branding can make or break a company today.
- Raju Chellam, The Business Times, Monday, November 13, 2001
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“There’s branding and there’s high-tech branding and the differences are enormous. The authors do a great job in isolating the many important principles of branding in an increasingly high technology world.”
