The Masterbrand Mandate: The Management Strategy That Unifies Companies and Multiplies Value

I served as the head of global marketing for The Coca-Cola Company and my regret is that I did not have the insight and approach of The Masterbrand Mandate to guide me during that tenure. This is a superb work that takes the concept of branding to an entirely new level of analysis and understanding. I salute Upshaw and Taylor and encourage anyone involved in branding at the practitioner or academic level to quickly get a copy of this marvelous book. It will become certainly a part of any future course I teach at the University of California at Berkeley.

This is a practical, real-world business book that clearly illustrates a fact that companies too often ignore (at their peril): brands really are too important to remain solely within the province of the marketing or corporate communications departments. In "The Masterbrand Mandate," Lynn Upshaw and Earl Taylor make a persuasive, well documented case that brands should indeed be the #1 priority of the CEO and senior management overall. My own experience mirrors a key thesis of this book -- successful companies understand fundamentally that every dimension of the organization must share in the responsibility of nurturing and living the brand...everyday. This includes all areas of the enterprise, from the CEO's office, to the finance and IT departments, HR, legal, operations, customer service and, of course, sales and marketing. The book also offers a fascinating discussion of the interlocking relationships that make-up brand "communities." In this networked, digitally-driven world, understanding how to tap into and maximize these dynamic brand communities is a powerful competitive advantage. I am not aware of any other business book that has provided such a useful analysis of how brand communities work, and how companies (and other enterprises) can leverage them for positive results. This is a terrific, well written book that I highly recommend to anyone looking to build, enhance and promote their own Masterbrand.

This is an outstanding book for the brand marketer and her CEO, both of whom need to make the most of their equities in unbelievably competitive times. The book explains clearly why creating a masterbrand within an organization makes it much more likely that business goals will be met, and why the people of the company will feel as if they are all pulling in the same direction. I recommend this book for everyone looking for an extra edge in the battle for the customer's mind, and the employee's heart.

Beyond its many useful strategic insights, *The Masterbrand Mandate* drives home two concepts that all by themselves qualify the book as required reading. First is the idea of creating a "brand community" that empowers customers with a healthy personal "ownership" of your brand -- so that they truly make it "theirs" and serve as an intimate, ongoing feedback loop that not only helps you better manage your brand but also helps drive customer acquisition through satisfied community members. The book offers great guidance in brand community building for marketing executives and CEOs alike. Second is a customer-empathetic philosophy and attitude toward coaching the people in your company who must serve as customer advocates if a successful, sustainable community is to be built. The book is a guide to doing this in ways that will help reduce customer stress to build brand loyalty and create competitive advantage. Many of the book's useful examples clearly come from the first-hand experience of the seasoned consultants who wrote it, rather than over-relying on cases reported by third parties like so many other marketing books. I highly recommend The Masterbrand Mandate.

This is the kind of management book which I hoped would becomeseminal when I coined the term Brand Architecture in the early1990s. Coaches of brand architecture train leaders in how investmentdecisions in the brand connect with all other investment decisionsincluding business model, strategic intent, organisational competencesand the company's "net" IQ. The Masterbrand Mandate reinforcesthis theme by exploring how companies earn their profits when theytruly put one or two masterbrands at the core of everything they do,as well as everything they communicate and interactively learn. Inglorious practical detail, this book demonstrates how companies livetheir masterbrand charter: uniquely and purposefully leading the way:---> in building to change with the net-driven economy ---> byinterpreting the real leverage potential of .com as being aboutbuilding community around the brand which is worthy of customer trust---> hyperlinking the brand propagation of value deep inside theorganisation and wide across partner networks thereby connectingculture, purpose and what the company is simply fastest at actionlearning ---> enjoying brand integrity as the human right tooutmanouevre the competition and to web the brand's "glocal"platform for serving the worldwide communities which relate to andthrough the masterbrand<p>The Masterbrand Mandate is today's book forunderstanding why branding is core to multiplying the relationshipneeded to prosper in the new economy. I'd happily clarify if you needconvincing. <p>Chris Macrae (email [email protected]), author ofBrand Chartering Handbook...