A case-study based guide which showcases the individuals within organizations who nurture and sustain brands and bring them to life through their everyday performance. Critical enough to remain credible yet overwhelmingly positive, it is a charismatic illustration of how to achieve true brand engagement.

The branding landscape is dominated by the marketers, the promise makers the people who commission the neon lights and the funky adverts. In our consumer society brands have become an obsession. But an often forgotten fact is that the people who make or break brands are the employees, the promise guardians.
Traditionally employee and customer communication has been very similar ("we show them the adverts!"). There's very strong evidence to suggest that staff (who are also educated consumers) are starting to reject PR and spin-style communication within organisations. But still 80% of spending on brands within organisations is on the physical brand trappings with very little attention given to the cultural and behavioural dimensions. It will have to change.
The core hypothesis of this book is that individuals within organisations who are committed to winning the brand war should focus most of their time on ensuring that their people are authentically engaged with the brand. Neglect this area and risk brand disasters of the Barings scale or creeping brand death, a slow poisoning from within. Read Brand Engagement and find out how to make the most of your brand asset. Listen to a podcast at: http: //cmm.thepodcastnetwork.com/2008/03/24/the-cranky-middle-manager-show-137-brand-engagement-with-ian-buckingham/

A case-study based guide which showcases the individuals within organizations who nurture and sustain brands and bring them to life through their everyday performance. Critical enough to remain credible yet overwhelmingly positive, it is a charismatic illustration of how to achieve true brand engagement.

This book debunks the notion that the Chief Executive is the primary figurehead and places line managers at the forefront. Using a mixture of unique but tried and tested bespoke management models and case studies, line managers are identified as the critical community in the war between brands.