"IF you brand it, they will come," (apologies to Field of Dreams) is the essence of Brand Warriors - corporate leaders share their winning strategies (HarperCollins, £20). It brings together the marketing strategies behind such famous brand names as Levi Strauss, Guinness, McDonald's and Rentokil. Easily identifiable brands have become nearly invisible because of their ubiquity and this is the secret of their success. The have entered popular consciousness and become part of the fabric of daily life.
One doesn't go for a burger and chips, one goes for a Big Mac and fries. Every parent is familiar with the cry "Have you seen my Levis?", asking for a pint without the moniker still usually means Guinness in many pubs and to "hoover" has entered the language as a verb.
This is the kind of iconic status that companies spend millions trying to achieve and this book, edited by Fiona Gilmore, allows the marketing chiefs the space to explain their brand's X-factor.
Tim Kelly, marketing director of Guinness Ireland, explains Guinness's success by saying that you are not buying any old pint, you are buying into something more, a slice of Irishness, of history and tradition but not the stuffy baggage this can often entail.
He cites the importance of advertising to reinforce the brand's image. Unfortunately, he completely ignores the ill-fated Guinness Light campaign which is comparable to the re-launch of Coca-Cola, a classic case of diluting the core product and losing buckets of money.
???????a siad ag teacht' and the `dancing bloke' campaigns are not alluded to as they still are remembered with great affection. by people as the best ever. The marketing gurus gathered here centre on the integrity of the brand and warn against the temptation to use its status to sell other products. In the 1980s Cadbury re-focused on its core products and re-established itself in the face of competition from Yorkie with a restatement of its traditional values in dairy milk "glass and a half of goodness" and "only the crumbliest . . . ".
Levis' Robert Holloway echoes the warning when he says he didn't join Levis to market baby clothes and polyester leisure suits, a reference to the brand extension carried out in the late 1960s and 1970s. He attributes Levis' pre-eminence in the marketplace today to back-to-basics jeans manufacturing - and sexy ads.
Brand Warriors is a useful tool but suffers from the fact that the gurus tend to write a little too much in jargon and seem to have their eye on public perception than giving a real no-holds-barred look at their strategies.
