The Infinite Asset: Managing Brands to Build New Value

This book does provide a valuable summary of others works in branding. Helps to explain and clarify how many different items have a link to your brand and shape the percpetion of it in customers minds. Not a new thought, but again a good succint summary that reminded me to think through how such relationships add value or take away from the organization and brands I work for. What this book does add is a way to depcit these relationships on a 3 dimensional model. Interesting ... but I would question the value of the time and effort spent to create such a diagram. I don't think the authors would disagree with me when I say it is the thought process that makes the difference .. not the fancy depiction.

Hill and Lederer in this book give us a very convincing argument why branding must be treated as an asset on line with products and intellectual properties. They introduce us to the "brand portfolio molecule" [BPM], which comes across as a very powerful tool to understand the relationship between not only the different brands in a company's portfolio but also to other brands outside the direct control of the company as perceived by the customer. With this information the authors move on to show how active brand portfolio management can be used to identify new growth opportunities both within the portfolio and as natural extensions.The book is full of actual examples of good and bad practice, and it covers both established companies that turns to active brand portfolio management and newcomers, that incorporate it from the beginning.The message in this book is not only for marketing people but also very much for the business leader, who wants to understand the power of brands and how he or she can use it to grow the company.

The true challenge for any business book is to be both interesting and relevant. The Infinite Asset was worth the time for me, and I think it will be for a wide range of audiences. Those managing large portfolios (and of course the consultants aspiring to help them) will like the "big idea" first section. Those managing individual brands, people trying to break into brand mgmt, and new MBAs will appreciate the second section. Yes, it is organized more as two books in one, and often the best statement of the concept is at the end, rather than the beginning of the chapter. But it is well written (has great quotations) a fast read for the complexity of thought and experience it contains. Worth the time.