Luc Bardin - The Enduring Strategic Brand: How Brand-Led Organisations Over-Perform Sustainably

THE Enduring Strategic Brand

How brand-led organisations over-perform sustainably

THE Enduring Strategic Brand

How brand-led organisations over-perform sustainably

Luc Bardin

with Clara and Elsa Bardin

urbanepublications.com

First published in Great Britain in 2016

by Urbane Publications Ltd

Suite 3, Brown Europe House, 33/34 Gleaming Wood Drive,

Chatham, Kent ME5 8RZ

Copyright Luc Bardin, Clara Bardin, Elsa Bardin, 2017

The moral right of Luc Bardin, Clara Bardin, Elsa Bardin to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-911-583-49-3
eISBN 978-1-911-583-50-9

Design and Typeset by Michelle Morgan

Cover by Rouge Absolu

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

urbanepublications.com

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING

Luc Bardins book is opening the door to strategic value creation. He captures the magic of the brand and translates the alchemy of an intangible asset base into 13 elements, which allow every reader to understand the fascinating art of enduring brand building.

Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum

I valued Luc Bardins counsel when we worked together. There is good reason why he is a globally renowned marketer and I would encourage other leaders to take insights and courage from his suggested framework on how to build and grow an enduring strategic brand.

Lord John Browne, former Group CEO BP

Those CEOs who already grasp the strategic value of their brand will find this book welcome, research-based validation. Those still doubtful will find it highly enlightening. And those who ignore it may continue to struggle to make strategic sense of their companies. I hope its hugely influential.

Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder and CEO WPP

Lucs work highlights the connection between the creation of enduring and increasingly valuable brands and successful strategies, implemented and adjusted as markets and circumstances warrant.

John Rice, Vice Chairman General Electric

CONTENTS

THE ENDURING STRATEGIC BRAND INTRODUCTION

The defining factor that has kept us in business and growing for more than 40 years has been the strength and reputation of the brand. The way a company brands itself is everything it will ultimately decide whether or not a business survives

Richard Branson, Founder at Virgin Group

On 20th April 2010, the BP-commissioned Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank. Eleven people tragically died, and for 87 days oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico in what was the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. Each second of each day that the oil continued to spill caused concern and damage for local communities and their surroundings. For the thousands of BP employees directly involved, like me, it was the most challenging and difficult time of our professional lives.

THE Enduring Strategic Brand is not a book solely concerned with lessons learned from my decades in senior leadership growing branded businesses nor is it a book about crisis management. However, the months spent in the eye of the storm during The Deepwater Horizon crisis clarified many valuable lessons about the essence, power and limitations of brands and how they relate to an organisations ability to form a sustainable future.

And there have been numerous other moments during my professional life, including a groundbreaking global partnership between BMW and Castrol that resulted in a co-branded filler cap inside the BMWs engine, that have fed this interest for what makes an Enduring Strategic Brand.

What is it precisely that makes one brand more likely to stand out and overperform than others? How do we build and grow an Enduring Strategic Brand fit for our ever-changing world? How do we ensure our brands fulfil their potential?

I have come to realise as a practitioner and through many conversations with other C-suite brand champions that the secret lays in 13 vital imperatives all of which are required to create THE Enduring Strategic Brand. This thinking is built on practical experience and the understanding of what would have made me a better, more effective CMO during my time on the frontline of strategic marketing.

I have subsequently underpinned this with some science, that is a framework all brands can use to build insights and assess their own strategic strengths and weaknesses. To support the 13-imperatives thesis, I have chosen 20 exemplary brands that are all sources of great learning and on a journey of transformation and drawn on the expertise of a panel of business and marketing leaders to analyse their successful formula.

But does it work? The results are striking. We compared the brand performances of our Exemplary Strategic Brands against the performance of the S&P 500 over a period of nine years from 2006-2015. The Exemplary Strategic Brands grew earnings 3.5 times faster than the S&P 500 average and revenues by 8 per cent CAGR versus 3 per cent more on this later.

WHY WRITE THE ENDURING STRATEGIC BRAND?

I had this book on my chest, as the convergence of three drivers:

First driver This book is set against the backdrop of tension for society and brands on the one hand, the surreal pace of change in the digital revolution and on the other, a number of fundamental truths that remain the same as ever.

On change, and as represented in , just look at what happens in an Internet minute; or how the communication landscape is changing radically, with Facebook and Google alone capturing 72% of the worlds online advertising (aside China).

It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man, with its obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own.