List of Tables and Figures xi

Introduction 1

The philosophy of the book and the concept of participation 1

The participatory branding philosophy 5

Introducing the assemblage model 10

Conclusion 15

Part I: Two Concepts of Brand Building

Introduction 17

1 The Outside–In Perspective 21

Outline: 1960 onwards 21

The nature of brands and branding 23

Understanding customers 27

The challenge of research 28

Using customer knowledge to build brands 35

Giving brand values meaning 38

Communicating the brand 41

Conclusion 46

2 The Inside–Out Perspective 49

The beginnings of inside–out thinking 49

Citizen employees 51

The value of values 57

Behavioural branding 65

Connecting employees and customers 71

Conclusion 77

Part II: Participatory Branding and The Assemblage

Introduction 81

3 A Participative Approach To Marketing 85

From marketing to market orientation 86

The principles of market orientation 88

Applying market-oriented thinking 90

Participatory market orientation (PMO) 92

Recipe for moving to PMO 96

Conclusion 101

4 Participatory Marketing 105

Connecting and co-creating with customers 107

Building internal engagement 110

Integrated marketing 115

Enhancing brand equity 119

Brand equity and financial brand value 123

Conclusion 128

5 Human Resources 131

The role of people in the organisation 132

The right people 138

Building identification, internalisation and commitment 145

Retention and development 150

Conclusion 158

6 Culture 161

Understanding culture 166

The use of narrative 173

Organisational sense-making 180

Participative cultures: participating and networking 183

Conclusion 188

7 Participatory Leadership 193

From arboresence to assemblages 196

Storytelling and transformational leadership 202

Symbolic acts 205

Reinforcing the vision 210

Conclusion 214

8 Evaluation 217

The idea of branding governance 218

Organising for management decision-making 220

Branding governance: the assemblage branding elements 224

How can brand equity and marketing efforts be measured? 228

How can HR drivers be measured in branding governance? 229

How can organisational culture be measured in branding governance? 234

How can leadership be measured? 238

Presenting the data 241

Conclusion 243

References and Bibliography 245

Index 265

Branding Governance challenges traditional thinking on brands. Bestselling author Nicholas Ind and cross-cultural communications expert Rune Bjerke expose the flaws in the marketing communications-led approach to brand-building, and argue instead for a highly participative, organisationwide process that delivers both fulfilment to employees and value to customers. Their emphasis is on the importance of interaction and experience in determining brand equity. To achieve this, organisations must break down the boundaries between those inside and outside it, and fuse the different parts together.

Building a brand, for Ind and Bjerke, is the responsibility not of a select few but of everyone in the organisation. Drawing on a wide range of sources from philosophy and sociology to marketing and organisational development, they show why brand building is a fluid process that requires the ability to sense and make sense of customer behaviour while enhancing the capabilities of the organisation. The key to a participatory approach is that customers and other external audiences must join managers and employees as active participants in defining and developing the brand. For this to work, the relationship between the organisation and its customers must be one of respect and authenticity.

Branding Governance looks beyond organisational silos to offer a new and integrated approach to the process of planning, structuring, executing and measuring brand policy.