The Brand Innovation Manifesto

The days of the image brands are over, and ‘new marketing’ has gone mainstream. The world’s biggest companies are pursuing a post-advertising strategy, moving away from advertising and investing in leading edge alternatives. In the vanguard of the revolution has been John Grant, co-founder of the legendary agency St. Luke’s and author of The New Marketing Manifesto, whose radical thinking has informed a generation. Now Grant is set to stun the industry again. In The Brand Innovation Manifesto, he redefines the nature of brands, showing why old models and scales no longer work and revealing that the key to success today is impacting people’s lifestyles (think Starbucks, iPod and eBay). At the heart of the book is the concept of the ‘brand molecule’ to which new cultural ideas can be constantly added to keep pace with change. Cataloguing 32 classes of idea, Grant presents a practical approach to mixing and matching them within your own market to develop new brand ideas - and new ideas for existing brands.

Acknowledgements. Introduction. SECTION I: BRAND THEORY REVISITED. 1 Challenges to the Old Model of Branding. 1.1 From Ad Idea to Media-Neutral Idea. 1.2 The Old School. 1.3 Protestant vs Catholic: The Battle for Brand Theory. Summary of Chapter 1. 2 A New Theory of Branding. 2.1 What Is a Brand? 2.2 Brand as Strategic Cultural Idea. 2.3 Brand as a Cluster of Cultural Ideas. 2.4 The Brand Innovation Imperative. 2.5 Hybrid Vigour: Brand Partnerships, Feuds, Leaps and Properties. 2.6 The Equivalence of Brand Creation and Brand Communication. 2.7 A Shift from Targeting an Audience to Adoption. 2.8 Establishing New Lifestyles. Summary of Chapter 2. 3 The Trouble with Trends. 3.1 The Difference between Cultural Trends and STEPs. 3.2 Real Trends. 3.3 Made-up Trends. Summary of Chapter 3. 4 Strategy: Finding a Cultural Logic. 4.1 Problem Finding. 4.2 Finding a Third Way. 4.3 A Bigger Context or Market. 4.4 Outside-In Thinking. 4.5 Brand Archaeology. 4.6 Brand Renaissance. 4.7 What Is the Other Side of the Story? 4.8 Strategy as Scripting. 4.9 What Is Lacking? 4.10 The Cultural RNA. 4.11 What Are We Here to Do? 4.12 Busting the Tradeoff in Your Market. 4.13 Model a Distant Parallel. 4.14 Information Saturation. 4.15 Deconstruction, Reconstruction. 4.16 Demolish the “Ad in Your Head”. 4.17 Rekindle Your Curiosity. 4.18 Bringing the Strategy to a Point of Focus. Summary of Chapter 4. SECTION II: A TYPOLOGY OF BRAND IDEAS. Building Your Molecule: 32 Brand Elements. Chapter Strcture. A Periodic Table for Brand Ideas. 1 New Traditions. 1A Habit Ideas. 1B Spectacular Ideas. 1C Leadership Ideas. 1D Organisation Ideas. 2 Belief Systems. 2A Cognitive Ideas. 2B Appreciation Ideas. 2C Faith Ideas. 2D Atlas Ideas. 3 Time. 3A Regressive Ideas. 3B Now Ideas. 3C Nostalgia Ideas. 3D Calendar Ideas. 4 Herd Instincts. 4A Initiation Ideas. 4B Crowd Ideas. 4C Clan Ideas. 4D Craze Ideas. 5 Connecting. 5A Co-authored Ideas. 5B Socialising Ideas. 5C Cooperative Ideas. 5D Localised Ideas. 6 Luxury. 6A Concierge Ideas. 6B Plenty Ideas. 6C Exclusive Ideas. 6D Exotic Ideas. 7 Provocative. 7A Erotic Ideas. 7B Cathartic Ideas. 7C Scandal Ideas. 7D Radical Ideas. 8 Control. 8A Personalised Ideas. 8B In-Control Ideas. 8C Competition Ideas. 8D Grading Ideas. SECTION III: DEVELOPING BRAND STRATEGIES. Developing New Brand Ideas in Practice. Organised Chaos vs Corporate Constipation. Using the 32 Cultural Ideas: Reframing. Example: Let’s Kill Lynx. Logical Conclusions. References. Index.