Chapter 1 reminds us of the talismanic magic of brands in our everyday lives and reveals the secret of power brands: the three-part harmony of art, science, and craft. Art refers to defining a superior value proposition, continually refining it, and communicating it creatively in the marketplace. Science stands for the knowledge needed to accurately measure and interpret a brand's performance parameters, the "mathematics" long thought incompatible with the art and craft of branding. Craft signifies workmanship and execution, the quality with which a company makes every aspect of the brand come to life – from the corporate center all the way to the customer. In all three areas – managing, measuring, and making brands – BrandMatics® offers insights and guidance on successful brand management.

Measuring brands
Chapter 2 is devoted to the least understood discipline: how to reliably measure the value of a brand. The instruments for brand measurement build on one another in a logical sequence. The starting point is to determine brand relevance for the specific product category. Knowing how much or little people care about branding provides an initial frame of reference for what managers can reasonably expect to achieve when building a brand in a specific industry and country context.

Brand relevance analysis is followed by market segmentation to identify and select attractive target groups for the brand. The next step is to distill an unforgettable brand image. Here, the brand diamond framework allows management to examine every facet – tangible and intangible, rational and emotional – that people associate with the brand. Once these associations are precisely understood, management can determine the brand strength with the help of the brand purchase funnel, which shows at each stage of the typical buying process how strongly the brand succeeds in holding the interest of consumers.

Making brands
Chapter 3 explores the question of how managers can build and extend brands systematically. What do consumers really care about? Brand driver analysis pinpoints the elements of the brand that tip the scales in the buying process. By combining brand driver analysis with pathways analysis, managers can map the 4 exact channels and touch points for creating moments of truth that bring the value proposition to life.

When brand management becomes a complex juggling act, intelligent methods for brand portfolio management help managers to maintain an overview, tap synergies, and allocate resources effectively and efficiently. To truly stand out, the brand should be enriched with the right mix and level of emotions. The key word here is "brand personality." The brand personality gameboard provides valid coordinates based on enduring archetypes for fine-tuning the fit between a brand's personality and a potential celebrity endorser or another company's brand in the context of co-branding or M&A.

Interview: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Reitzle, CEO at Linde AG, and Jesko Perrey discuss key success factors in brand management. Reitzle stresses the primacy of consistency in making brands thrive, especially in the face of ferocious discounters.

Managing brands
Even the best brand strategy will wither on the vine without well-managed investment. Chapter 4 explains how to use marketing return on investment (RoI) to decide whether money spent on the brand is paying off and how marketing investments can be systematically evaluated in terms of how many people they reach and at what level of cost and contact quality. Transparency, control, and broad anchoring in the organization are key features of systematic brand management and help to identify savings and new growth opportunities.

The brand cockpit provides a central instrument panel at which managers can collect and interpret facts and figures from the market to navigate a course to success despite turbulent weather.

Successful brand management needs to be reinforced by a strong organization with the right structure, management skills, and decision making processes for brand delivery at all customer touch points. Top management plays the decisive role here, but working with external service providers as partners is another essential part of a winning brand strategy.

Interview: Chris Burggraeve, Group Marketing Director of the Coca-Cola Group in Europe, explains how new media have helped him to think through new solutions and shares the fun and challenges of managing the world's most successful global brand.

Chapter 5 rounds out the book with ten principles for success. These down-to earth pointers are a quick guide to what CEOs and CMOs should look for and insist on in measuring, making, and managing power brands.