Managing Brands: a Contemporary Perspective takes a fresh new look at brand management and strategy and the pivotal role of branding in today’s business environment.

Written for students of branding at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, this book provides students with an incisive account of how successful brands are created, built and managed. Clear and comprehensive coverage examines the naming, design and packaging of a brand, how brand images and messages are created, and the theory of positioning brands in the market. The text also tackles how to successfully extend brands and manage brand portfolios, and sustain brands throughout their life cycle.

Informed by the latest research and developments in branding, this textbook has an emphasis on the managerial, corporate and strategic decisions facing today’s brand manager, including:

• Brand equity- what brands are worth to companies and how they can be valued
• Building brands and building the business- how brands contribute the success of corporations and companies
• How branding has moved out of marketing and up the corporate agenda, becoming a strategic issue that concerns senior managers and business leaders
• The role of brands in building corporate reputation- harnessing the power of social marketing and facing the challenges of ethical, environmental, and socially responsible branding.

The book is packed with many features that bring branding to life, including:

• Brand Brief examples present lively and topical debates, such as branding and hip-hop culture, “feed” branding through RSS, ring tones and digital channels, the future of brand customisation, Levi’s ethical aspirations, the demand for eco-labels and packaging in Sweden, and the emergence of Chinese brands.
• Many mini-case studies and examples pepper the text, including longer cases with questions to challenge students understanding. Brands featured in the case studies include Virgin, American Express, Kelloggs, Nike, Hyundai and Slim-Fast.
• End of chapter sections provide discussion questions and more challenging project tasks which require wider research individually or in class groups.