A CEO’s view: How to fight for your brand

“Brand Warfare”
by David F. D’Alessandro
McGraw-Hill, 2001


Noontime comes, you are alone, and you decide it’s time to have a quick lunch. You mentally survey your myriad choices, then rule them out one by one – because you decide to go to your favorite restaurant across the street.

In my case, while searching for a suitable angle for this review, I thought of lunch with two divergent thoughts: one, do it quick and get it over and done with; or two, spend an hour in a familiar corner to collect my thoughts and give them sharp focus. My choice was Hunter’s Deli, a cozy restaurant with a European charm --designed to give one a touch of nature in the concrete jungle.

And since I was in the mood to get ideas on “branding,” I asked the owner-operator if the “ambience” was by design or by accident. What she revealed was a noontime lesson on branding. Hunter’s Deli was designed for the adventurous – those who want to try something new in European cuisine – with the feel of the woods to reinforce the message.

The constant inflow of expats, baby boomers and yuppies told me this is one “brand” that has succeeded in inspiring loyalty from its market segment.

That is precisely what the book, “Brand Warfare,” is saying: “The truth is that consumers need brands, both good and bad, to help them navigate a world in which their choices are almost infinite. The best thing that can happen to a brand is to become a kind of shorthand in consumers’ eyes for a host of great qualities that demand their loyalty and respect.”

The book is sub-titled “10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand,” and you would expect perhaps a ho-hum list of laws that simply summarize tried and tested strategies. This book is certainly a cut above the rest. It is written by a highly successful CEO who made an insurance firm, John Hancock, an exciting and audacious (not the cooly professional) company -- that soon led the New York Times to list is as one of the top 100 brands of the 20th century.

The book abounds with soundbites and quotable quotes – not because they bring to you the poetry and majesty of the English language – but because every statement is a wondrous vehicle for a rare insight from a successful CEO, who has made it clear that he tolerates no nonsense, but who extols superior ideas and does not withhold praises for fine business execution.

What makes listening to a CEO a rare treat is that you come face to face -- not with a marketing professional with all the predictable marketing jargon – but with a top honcho who shows the big picture. He “connects” politics with marketing. He unravels the distributors’ ploy to keep you hostage. He exposes some ad agencies’ agenda to keep you spending your advertising dollar (or peso, in our case).

“There’s a sucker born every 30 seconds,” he says of those selling sponsorhip ideas, paraphrasing American circus impresario P.T. Barnum who earlier gave the dictum: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Don’t get him wrong. D’Alessandro has actually used sponsorships to the hilt – and with great impact on his market share.

D’Alessandro was a hotshot public relations man before he became CEO, and so he uses “brand” when he means “reputation.” In his mind, there is no distinction. A brand, he defines, is “whatever the consumer thinks of when he or she hears your company’s name.” Author Jack Trout would call this “positioning.”

The author minces no words when he declares: “The best brand equals the best product.”

He moves on to cover the ten rules. For example, the first rule, “It’s the Brand, Stupid,” is a take-off from the winning political slogan of Bill Clinton, which ran: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Later in the book, the author illustrates two important branding warfare strategies of, yes, Clinton.

He illustrates the first tactic, “It’s crucial to persuade people to think well of your company before you really need them to,” by citing the “insulated Clinton brand” that has survived the Monica Lewinsky misadventure. In other words, a company, like Clinton, should have a reservoir of goodwill from which to get support when the going gets rough.

The second advice, “Don’t allow your enemies to define you,” is a respected public relations tenet that, in the mind of D’Alessandro, has been elevated as a trusted marketing weapon. He cites the case of Michael Dukakis whose character has been defined for him by antagonist George Bush. The latter won the electoral contest.

Predictably, the author uses his experience as CEO of Hancock and how he made it such a successful brand – and we don’t begrudge him that. After all, reading him is like being with him at the board room – and seeing him tear apart mediocre ideas and hearing him bring out wisdom culled from the battlefield – with laconic lines like: “Brands cannot simply stand still” – and then enumerates for you brand names that have effectively become has-beens.

Readers, meet a consummate CEO, who has victories in the marketplace to earn for himself at least your valuable reading time.