Creating Brand Loyalty: The Management of Power Positioning and Really Great Advertising

Citation

Jonathan Zajas, J. (2000), "Creating Brand Loyalty: The Management of Power Positioning and Really Great Advertising", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 17 No. 6, pp. 550-560. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2000.17.6.550.5

If you were preparing to spend a great deal of money to launch and advertise a new offering, “where and how would you begin?” Experienced marketers and advertising executives know that a good part of the time and money spent in the advertising and brand management process is difficult to measure in terms of increased profitability, market share, and/or sales revenue. Often times the advertising and brand management process is fraught with frustrations, difficulties, and challenges. Where then can smart brand managers and creative directors turn for help to navigate the channels of mass advertising and brand management? A new book, by experienced brand managers Richard D. Czerniawski (Kenilworth, IL) and Michael W. Maloney (Austin, TX), addresses such questions and issues by providing readers with relevant tools and examples so that they may be able to successfully navigate the brand management and creative advertising process.

In their introduction, the authors assure us that “the marketer who reads this book and utilizes the many available tools will learn how” to do several things (pp. xx‐xxi). Among these, readers will learn how to:

• •

  fulfill the four core responsibilities of effective client brand building and advertising;

• •

  gain “Power positioning” to correctly differentiate offerings and motivate target customers through the creation of brand loyalty;

• •

  develop strategic vision and competitive ad direction for products and services;

• •

  institute a creative process that can reduce development time in half while also improving the quality of the creative product;

• •

  inspire, maintain, and manage “breakthrough advertising”;

• •

  create superior images and ad campaigns even with “parity products”; and

• •

  produce and sustain winning ad campaigns capable of lasting ten or more years.

Why do so many consumers choose Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes cereal over other brands? why do so many children (and their parents) get “stuck on Band Aids?” or get drawn to McDonald’s or Burger King? or why does Wall Street and corporate US place premium value on “brands” such as Pepsi or Coca Cola as opposed to generic products such as soft drinks? The answer, according to the authors lies in the development of powerful, unique brands and the ability of a firm’s marketing managers to manage its brands effectively and work dynamically with its ad agencies to create really great advertising. For those who may mistakenly see this as a simple process, this book will be helpful because of the emphasis it gives to the key marketing fundamentals of strategic thinking, competitive positioning, and building brands.

To support their claim that brand loyalty is the foundation of success for most consumer products, the authors provide a wealth of examples and practical experiences from their 25 plus years as brand marketing managers for several respectable Fortune 500 firms (such as Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Coca Cola, and Frito Lay). They assert that it is high time for companies and ad agencies to break away from the “age of sameness” and learn “how to think creatively and critically” so as to build effective brands through power positioning. Of the 19 chapters in their book, ten are devoted to the development of brand management and power positioning. For example, in chapter 2, readers are shown how to build a foundation for the brand; in chapter 3, how to assess customer needs and know when to lead with a need; in chapter 4, how to select the right bulls‐eye target customers; in chapter 5, how to set the competitive framework; in chapter 6, how to build better brand benefits; in chapter 7, how to gain brand credibility; in chapter 8, how to develop a winning brand personality; in chapter 9, how to bulletproof one’s positioning; in chapter 10, how to maintain “the big picture”; and in chapter 11, how to establish power positioning for brands. Each chapter is well illustrated and supported with short vignettes, practical advice, or helpful tools for those interested in applying the key principles presented.

Building their book on a client advertiser approach (versus a traditional ad agency approach), one of the most useful lessons presented by the authors is the four core responsibilities of the effective brand builder and client advertiser. Briefly these are:

1. 1.

   (1) brand positioning – establishing the strategic vision for the brand’s development;

2. 2.

   (2) ad strategy – offering clear ad development direction or focus (using consumer feedback and insights);

3. 3.

   (3) campaign ideas – nurturing the creative brand through the applied strategic advertising process (ASAP); and

4. 4.

   (4) coaching the ad agency (and all other resources) to success.

Agreeing with the notion that “clients get what they deserve in their advertising,” the authors assert that effective clients must be aware of their responsibility to unearth the creativity of their ad agency. They contend this process unfolds by building a solid, close relationship between the firm’s brand marketing manager(s) and the ad agency’s creative director(s). By partnering together with a commonality of vision and key ad objectives, the brand manager and creative director must commit to building a unique brand through power positioning. By defining what makes an ad campaign really great, and by communicating the uniqueness of the brand by moving from effective ad strategy to successful media advertising, these partners (the brand manager and creative director) will reap the rewards of creating brand loyalty.

The authors offer a better way to define what is meant by really great advertising (see chapter 12), and how to develop the ad strategy and fundamentals of effective advertising (see chapters 13‐15). Numerous suggestions are given to improve on the key campaign idea or to make one’s ads more compelling. One of the most helpful features of each chapter lies in the “key principles” (or summary) section. Key chapter points are crystallized into salient concepts for purposes of reinforcement and review. Moreover, each chapter opens with relevant quotes or proverbs to introduce the key points or lessons to be presented. The narrative is lively, dynamic, and relevant to the topics being addressed. In an informative and interesting manner, the authors succeed in presenting important business marketing principles that would otherwise take one years to acquire. For this reason alone, the book is well worth the investment taken to purchase it and read it thoroughly. Regardless of the medium desired to advertise one’s offerings, or the size of the advertising budget one has to invest in the execution of an ad campaign, the authors provide valuable insights and advice to prospective and practicing executives alike. In the process, they offer a vital service to modern advertising and brand marketing managers.

This book offers a highly informative and fairly practical approach to the brand management and creative advertising process. It is primarily meant and positioned for use as a trade book. Thus, it would probably not be an appropriate textbook at the undergraduate level in advertising or marketing, but it could serve well as a useful reference book for use at the upper undergraduate or graduate level. As a marketing strategy consultant and business professor, I would have wanted to see more examples and/or cases throughout the book related to the ethics of advertising. There is little reference to the social consciousness viewpoint of advertising. Much advertising today is overly sensual, some is misleading or unethical, and many trends seem to indicate that there may be no end in sight. With advertising becoming more high tech and somewhat offensive (or overly sensualgraphic), it is important to address the need for good morals, values, or ethics in the creative advertising process. This is one major area in which the book simply falls short. It does offer 31 pages of valuable appendices, including a helpful glossary of key terms, marketing forms, tools, and templates, and an index (but no endnotes or footnotes). Overall, the book provides a wide variety of models and exercises to give the reader assistance in several skill areas. It should prove to be of interest to the CEO and CMO (chief marketing officer) as well as to the brand marketing managers within a firm and the creative directors of their ad agencies. Because the book succeeds in illustrating the advertising and brand management process, the authors have done well in addressing a key marketing question: Where and how then does one begin to create brand loyalty through positioning and advertising? To this end, the book offers the reader valuable and informative advice which is worth many times more than the price of the book.