From Patagonia to Apple, Whole Foods to New Balance, we love our favorite products--and, by extension, the companies that provide them. The emotional connections we form with our beloved brands and services are important relationships--relationships that are potentially worth billions. In the fast-paced, constantly-changing world of the modern marketplace, brands must adapt or perish—strategies, methods, and techniques must evolve to remain effective and relevant. Are you using yesterday’s thinking for tomorrow’s challenges? Brand Intimacy details ways to build better marketing through the cultivation of emotional connections between brand and consumer. The book provides lessons for marketers and business leaders alike who are seeking to understand these ultimate brand relationships and the opportunities they represent. Divided into three sections, Brand Intimacy starts with Context and Understanding. This explains today’s marketing landscape, the effects of technology, consumer behaviors and the advancements around decision making. Through research we discovered that people form relationships with brands the same way they develop relationships with other people. This section provides guidance on how to think about complimentary concepts such as loyalty, satisfaction and brand value. We then explore and compare established approaches and methodologies and showcase why intimacy is a compelling new and enhanced opportunity to build your brand or market your business. The second section, Theory and Model reveals and dimensions the brand intimacy model and dissects it into steps to help you better factor it into your marketing approaches or frameworks. Here you will learn the core concepts and components that are essential to build bonds and the role emotion can play to help you achieve greater customer engagement. You can also review the rankings of the best brands in terms of Brand Intimacy. A summary of our annual research reveals the characteristics of best performers, the most intimate industries, and differences based on geography, age, gender and income. By examining the top intimate brands, we reveal and decode the secrets of the bonds they form with their customers. The third section is Methods & Practice, this details the economic benefits and advantages of a strategy that factors Brand Intimacy. Intimate brands are proven to outperform the Fortune 500 and Standards and Poors’ index of brands. Intimate brands create more revenue and profit and last longer. Consumers are also willing to pay more for a brand they are more intimate with. Conversely, we also explore a series of brand failures and lessons learned to help you avoid common pitfalls in brand management. We articulate the steps to build a more intimate brand as well as share a glimpse on the future where software will play a more important role in brand building. The book outlines a proprietary digital platform that we use to help manage and enable intimacy through collaboration, simulators and real-time tracking of emotions. Business and marketing owners face an increasing difficult task to build brands that rise above the clutter, engage more and grow. Brand Intimacy explains how to better measure, build and manage enduring brands. Brands that are built to inspire as well as profit. Written by experienced marketers and backed by extensive research, Brand Intimacy rewrites the rulebook on how to establish and expand your marketing. The book is equal parts theory, research and practice, the result of 7 year journey and a new marketing paradigm for the modern marketer.

Praise for Kellogg on Marketing "The Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University has always been at the forefront of cutting-edge marketing. What a treasure to find such a complete anthology of today's best strategic marketers all in one place. Kellogg on Marketing provides a unique combination of new and proven marketing theories that the reader can translate into business success." —Betsy D. Holden, President and CEO, Kraft Foods "Kellogg on Marketing presents a comprehensive look at marketing today, combining well-founded theory with relevant, contemporary examples in the marketplace. This should be mandatory reading for all students of marketing." —Robert S. Morrison, Chairman, President and CEO, The Quaker Oats Company "The Who's Who write on the what's what of marketing. Now, these preeminent marketing doctors are making house calls. Enjoy." —Robert A. Eckert, Chairman and CEO, Mattel, Inc. "This volume is a fascinating collection of perspectives on what it takes to dominate a marketspace in the New Economy. . . . A clear demonstration of why Kellogg is Kellogg-one of the thought leaders in the discipline of marketing." —Mel Bergstein, Chairman and CEO, Diamond Technology Partners "New economy cases make this text appeal to old economy strategists. We shouldn't be suprised with the quality of this work, given its origin in the Kellogg School." —Ronald W. Dollens, President, Guidant Corporation

This book contains the full proceedings of the 2015 Academy of Marketing Science World Marketing Congress held in Bari, Italy. The current worldwide business environment is leading marketing scholars and practitioners to reconsider a number of historical and current views of the marketplace and how it functions. Further, determining new marketing theories and practical methods whose effectiveness can be truly measured must be added to the list of current challenges for today and tomorrow. In such a period in marketing history, achieving and managing efficient and effective marketing actions is a necessity. Determining such actions is based on practical experience, solid theory and appropriate research methodology. The enclosed papers focus on new research ideas on vibrant topics that can help academics and practitioners gain new perspectives and insights into today’s turbulent marketplace. Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complimenting the Academy’s flagship journals, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science.

The creation and management of customer relationships is fundamental to the practice of marketing. Marketers have long maintained a keen interest in relationships: what they are, why they are formed, what effects they have on consumers and the marketplace, how they can be measured and when and how they evolve and decline. While marketing research has a long tradition in the study of business relationships between manufacturers and suppliers and buyers and sellers, attention in the past decade has expanded to the relationships that form between consumers and their brands (such as products, stores, celebrities, companies or countries). The aim of this book is to advance knowledge about consumer-brand relationships by disseminating new research that pushes beyond theory, to applications and practical implications of brand relationships that businesses can apply to their own marketing strategies. With contributions from an impressive array of scholars from around the world, this volume will provide students and researchers with a useful launch pad for further research in this blossoming area.

Written by an expert author team, this engaging textbook builds upon the traditional frameworks of brand strategy to analyse the emotional and cultural impact real-world brands have on contemporary consumers.