Should We Regulate Branding Gurus?

18 September 2008 at 9:45 am Nicolai Foss 5 comments

| Nicolai Foss |

Ronald Coase famously argued that if one buys into utilitarian arguments for regulating “the market for goods,” it is hard to present a strong case against regulating the “market for ideas” (here).

I was reminded of Coase’s paper when I received an invitation to an “executive event” from the executive education branch of my School. The event is a presentation by “one of the world’s leading authorities on brand strategy and marketing,” Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler (here he is on Google Scholar), who will present the main messages in a new book co-authored with famous branding guru, David Aaker, Brand Leadership (I cannot locate it on Amazon, so it must be very fresh from the press). Here are some of the things that you can apparently learn from this book:

Find new growth opportunities in plain sight that are ripe for the picking

Optimize your existing portfolio to generate sustainable growth without relying on new products

Innovate beyond product by creating new business models or consumer experiences

Increase marketing spend effectiveness by directing your dollars to the most relevant aspects of consumers’ daily lives.

The first bullet is particularly lovely. Do you have to be a Chicago finance scholar to deny that there are “new growth opportunities” that are “in plain sight” and “ripe for the picking”? I doubt it. The general question is, how much over the top can you go in terms of advertising your products on the markets for ideas — and should regulators care? While I don’t think there is a general case for regulating these markets, there may exist a Pigovian case for subsidizing books such as this one.

Entry filed under: - Foss -, Ephemera, Management Theory.

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5 Comments Add your own

1. REW | 18 September 2008 at 3:25 pm

Peter, the book is actually eat years old and you can find copies of the in the used market that less than five dollars. This joint book is much less interesting than either of the previous books written by David Aaker. I use both of them in my executive education modules. interestingly, both Joachimsthaler and Aaker are entrepreneurs, founders and principals in rather large international marketing consultancies. In the marketplace for ideas where money actually exchanges hands, they do well. While I agree that the four bullet points you list are profoundly uninteresting, I would recommend some of the journal articles both of these authors published during their academic careers.BTW, check out Jennifer L. Aaker at the Stanford GSB — a meteoric career, will probably surpass father’s.
2. REW | 18 September 2008 at 3:27 pm

Oops! sorry about the spelling error in the first line of that post. The dictation software didn’t understand my implicit preference for the number over the past tense of the verb (to eat).
3. Nicolai Foss | 18 September 2008 at 4:03 pm

REW, my name is “Nicolai”, not “Peter.” (Hmmm, I do blog too infrequently here on O&M:(). But thanks for the info.
4. bee | 20 September 2008 at 9:15 pm

Nonsense like this keeps business types who refuse to understand the real nature of business preoccupied. Much of the work in the area of branding fails to account for business model factors. In addition, most of the research addresses brands after they have become household names.
5. Erich Joachimsthaler | 4 November 2008 at 12:55 am

Hi,

thank you for the comments. There is a little confusion: the book: Brand Leadership, was written by David A. Aaker and myself. The second book: Hidden in Plain Sight, was just written by myself. The four bullet points come from the second book.

I guess given that there are now two books, this makes things even worse.

I got fascinated with the idea that executives get blinded by their own success — Sony did not see the MP3 opportunity that was in plain sight. Leica did not see or did not want to the respond to the fact that photography became digital, and only switched after 90 percent of the market was already digital.

In several dozen projects of developing a growth strategy for large companies, we applied some concepts that worked very well for our clients and I wrote it up.

I did not think it was nonsense that I was writing but you are much better to judge than me. I am trying and probably failed. It seems by your standards it is better that people like me just don’t try.

Oh, yes, and the comment on Jennifer Aaker. Her work is superb, I agree.

Erich