Faced with crowded markets, flat growth and growing consumer cynicism, brand marketers are looking for ways to deepen the emotional connection between their brands and customers. This book uses interviews and case studies to show how brands such as Harley-Davidson, Google, Zara clothing, and Camper shoes have outstripped the growth of their peers by igniting passion among employees and consumers alike. They are "passion brands," and they show the way forward for marketing in the 21st century. Drawing on both research and academic theory, the authors put forward a practical, systematic approach to the business of creating passion brands from existing brands. Always vivid, often contentious, Creating Passion Brands shows what really counts at the heart of branding today.

Every industry around the globe is being completely disrupted. Stalwart brands are losing market share to upstarts that capture our collective consciousness. Trillions of dollars are at stake. Brands know a new approach is needed. But most don’t realize the strategic underpinnings need to change. Great brands are no longer built through interruptive advertisements. Friction argues that brands don't simply need clever messages or new, shiny technologies. They need a fundamental change in strategy. Friction provides a system for embracing transparency, engaging audiences, creating evangelists, and unleashing unprecedented growth. The authors of Friction have worked on some of the industry's most innovative assignments for the world’s most successful brands. This groundbreaking book reveals how corporations can divorce themselves from legacy business models to create a passion brand. A brand that breaks its addiction to traditional advertising. A brand that empowers its customers. A brand that dominates the competition.

We at Hershey's know something about brands that ignite genuine passion. In Passion Brands, Kate unlocks the secrets, showing how passion grows as special brands conscript a loyal following to spend precious social and financial currency. It's a fast, hot read, full of tips and tactics you can apply today and feel tomorrow on the bottom line.-Dave West, President and CEO, The Hershey CompanyKate is dissecting passion as a branding exercise. Timely, thoughtful and as ever erudite. I love reading her stuff.-Paco Underhill, author of Why We BuyKate Newlin is one of the sharpest brains in consumer marketing.... Her success in creating, building and reinventing brands should make this work invaluable.-Daryl Brewster, chairman and CEO, Krispy KremeKate is quite simply one of the smartest individuals I've met in business.... Her raw creativity, coupled with a profound understanding of our culture, market space and consumers make for remarkably actionable thinking.-Jim Becktold, director, Proctor & GambleWhat makes some brands stand out from the pack year after year? In a vast marketplace glutted with countless pretty good brands, how are some products able to command unquestionable customer loyalty and lasting enthusiasm?Veteran business strategist Kate Newlin defines the key ingredients that go into passion brands-brands that we recommend to friends wholeheartedly, with a joyous, even evangelical zeal. Passion brands inspire an emotional attachment. Unlike consumer fads, we become personally invested in them, sometimes even more so than we do with our friends and loved ones.Newlin identifies the social factors that have made passion brands the driving force in consumer marketing today. Based on proprietary research, which makes use of in-depth interviews with company executives as well as state-of-the-art analytics, she answers the following key questions:?Are there common characteristics that enable passion brands to become carriers of personal meaning?What is the financial impact on a company that produces a passion brand?Do passion brands create a halo over the stock prices?She notes that in a world of almost unlimited consumer choices, the old rules of marketing just don't work anymore (product, package, position, price, and promotion). Now marketers must react to consumers in real time, encouraging brand democracy in which users can help decide a product's characteristics, from size and color to how it should be marketed.Passion Brands is must reading for entrepreneurs and denizens of corporate cubicles and boardrooms alike.Kate Newlin (New York, NY), the principal and founder of Kate Newlin Consulting, is the author of Shopportunity! How to Be a Retail Revolutionary, which was on the Oprah Selects list of O magazine in 2006 and was also a recommended selection of the 2006 Harvard Business Review. With over 25 years of experience in business strategy and marketing, Newlin has worked with a broad cross-section of Fortune 500 businesses, including McDonald's, Pennzoil/Quaker State, Kraft, Hasbro, Cigna, GE Capital, Waldenbooks, LensCrafters, and others.

Today’s best companies get it. From Costco® to Commerce Bank, Wegmans to Whole Foods®: they’re becoming the ultimate value creators. They’re generating every form of value that matters: emotional, experiential, social, and financial. And they’re doing it for all their stakeholders. Not because it’s “politically correct”: because it’s the only path to long-term competitive advantage. These are the Firms of Endearment. Companies people love doing business with. Love partnering with. Love working for. Love investing in. Companies for whom “loyalty” isn’t just real: it’s palpable, and driving unbeatable advantages in everything from marketing to recruitment. You need to become one of those companies. This book will show you how. You’ll find specific, practical guidance on transforming every relationship you have: with customers, associates, partners, investors, and society. If you want to be great—truly great—this is your blueprint. We’re entering an Age of Transcendence, as people increasingly search for higher meaning in their lives, not just more possessions. This is transforming the marketplace, the workplace, the very soul of capitalism. Increasingly, today’s most successful companies are bringing love, joy, authenticity, empathy, and soulfulness into their businesses: they are delivering emotional, experiential, and social value–not just profits. Firms of Endearment illuminates this, the most fundamental transformation in capitalism since Adam Smith. It’s not about “corporate social responsibility”: it’s about building companies that can sustain success in a radically new era. It’s about great companies like IDEO and IKEA®, Commerce Bank and Costco®, Wegmans and Whole Foods®: how they earn the powerful loyalty and affection that enables truly breathtaking performance. This book is about gaining “share of heart,” not just share of wallet. It’s about aligning stakeholders’ interests, not just juggling them. It’s about building companies that leave the world a better place. Most of all, it’s about why you must do all this, or risk being left in the dust... and how to get there from wherever you are now.

In a world of switched-off and disenchanted consumers, the time is right for a new approach to communicating with customers. Passion Branding is that approach. Centred on a passionate relationship between brand and consumer and the leverage of that passion in order to create value for all involved in the relationship, Passion Branding can be a great way to drive brand awareness at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising, particularly for brands that don't enjoy high emotional affinity with customers. Drawing on major case studies from around the world (including Shell and Ferrari, Hyundai and the FIFA World Cup, and Guinness and the Rugby World Cup) as well as interviews with top practitioners, Neill Duffy introduces Passion Branding, shows why it is about much more than simple sponsorship, and details the many areas in which this versatile business tool can play a role.

Adopted internationally by business schools, MBA programmes and marketing practitioners alike, The New Strategic Brand Management is simply the reference source for senior strategists, positioning professionals and postgraduate students. Over the years it has not only established a reputation as one of the leading works on brand strategy but also has become synonymous with the topic itself. The new edition builds on this impressive reputation and keeps the book at the forefront of strategic brand thinking. Revealing and explaining the latest techniques used by companies worldwide, author Jean-Noël Kapferer covers all the leading issues faced by the brand strategist today, supported by an array of international case studies. With both gravitas and intelligent insight, the book reveals new thinking on a wealth of topics including: brand architecture and diversity strategies; market adaptation approaches; positioning in the private label and store brand environment, and much, much more. Whether you work for an international company seeking to leverage maximum financial value for your brand, or whether you are looking for practical guidance on brand management itself, Kapferer's market-leading book is the one you should be reading to develop the most robust and watertight approach for your company.

Provides an overview of the big issues in the business world today, with firsthand accounts from young leaders tasked with tackling these issues head on.