Using Business Source Premier, locate and review the following articles on Brand Management. Post a 5+ page synopsis of the brand management concepts presented in the articles. This initial review of the brand management literature should be completed today.

Dev, C.; Schulze, H.; Granoff, J.; & Keller, K. L. (2008). The corporate brand: Help or hindrance? Harvard Business Review, 86(2), 49-58.

Each of Lilypad's boutique hotels has its own sense of place and definition of customer experience. Though loyal to their favorites, guests don't visit other luxury properties in the collection or even realize they're affiliated. To boost the lifetime value of existing customers and reach new ones, CEO Andre Cleary is thinking about positioning the hotels more directly under the corporate umbrella. The company could gain scale efficiencies and possibly increase visits — but does one brand really fit all? Four experts comment on this fictional case study. Horst Schulze, the CEO and president of the West Paces Hotel Group, says that Lilypad must build up its corporate brand to create long-term value. This would also help the company become more efficient at cross-promoting properties, offering services, and buying supplies in bulk. Jill Granoff, the executive vice president of direct brands at Liz Claiborne, says that the financial risks of putting the Lilypad name front and center may outweigh the potential rewards. The company should instead market its hotels more aggressively to travel agents and selectively acquire new properties to propel further growth. Kevin Lane Keller of Dartmouth argues that Lilypad must clarify what its brand represents before giving it any more emphasis. Rather than making significant changes in the rooms themselves, which could weaken the individual brands, management should coordinate behind the scenes to improve cross-sell numbers. Jez Frampton, the global CEO of the consultancy Interbrand, thinks Andre should systematically examine the brand in terms of Lilypad's customers and culture. That means conducting market research and moving away from the current "warlord" approach of managing each property as a separate fiefdom.

Holt, D. B. (2003). What becomes an icon most? Harvard Business Review, 81(3), 43-49.

Some brands become icons. Think of Nike, Apple, Harley-Davidson: They're the brands every marketer regards with awe. But they are not built according to the principles of conventional marketing, says Harvard Business School marketing professor Douglas Holt. Iconic brands beat the competition not just by delivering innovative benefits, services, or technologies but by forging a deep connection with the culture. A brand becomes an icon when it offers a compelling myth, a story that can help people resolve tensions in their lives. The deepest source of tension in modern society is the disparity between national ideology and the average citizen's reality. When ideologies shift, myths become even more important, and in America, the most potent myths are depictions of rebels. Mountain Dew has long offered a rebel myth in ads showing exciting, vital men who are far from the ideological model of success. Loyal customers drink the beverage to consume the myth. But Mountain Dew's greatest achievement is that it has retained its iconic power by creating fresh rebel myths to suit the tensions of each era: first the hillbilly, who stood in stark contrast to the organization man of the 1950s and 1960s; then the redneck, who rebelled against the investment bankers and consultants of the 1970s and 1980s; and most recently the slacker, who rejects the values and behaviors that, for the past decade, have marked the successful executive. Holt says marketers can learn from Mountain Dew and other iconic brands if they are willing to move beyond conventional brand management and acquire knowledge and skills they may not have. They must learn to target national contradictions instead of just consumer segments, create myths that make sense of confusing societal changes, and speak with a rebel's voice.

Holt, D. B. (2004). How global brands compete. Harvard Business Review, 82(9), 68-75.

It's time to rethink global branding. More than two decades ago, Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt argued that corporations should grow by selling standardized products all over the world. But consumers in most countries had trouble relating to generic products, so executives instead strove for global scale on backstage activities such as production while customizing product features and selling techniques to local tastes. Such "glocal" strategies now rule marketing. Global branding has lost more luster recently because transnational companies have been under siege, with brands like Coca-Cola and Nike becoming lightning rods for antiglobalization protests. The instinctive reaction of most transnational companies has been to try to fly below the radar. But global brands can't escape notice. In fact, most transnational corporations don't realize that because of their power and pervasiveness, people view them differently than they do other firms. In a research project involving 3,300 consumers in 41 countries, the authors found that most people choose one global brand over another because of differences in the brands' global qualities. Rather than ignore the global characteristics of their brands, firms must learn to manage those characteristics. That's critical, because future growth for most companies will likely come from foreign markets. Consumers base preferences on three dimensions of global brands-quality (signaled by a company's global stature); the cultural myths that brands author; and firms' efforts to address social problems. The authors also found that it didn't matter to consumers whether the brands they bought were American– a remarkable finding considering that the study was conducted when anti-American sentiment in many nations was on the rise.

Keller, K. L. (2000). The brand report card. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 147-157.

Most managers recognize the value in building and properly managing a brand. But few can objectively assess their brand's particular strengths and weaknesses. Most have a good sense of one or two areas in which their brand may excel or may need help. But, if pressed, many would find it difficult even to identify all the factors they should be considering. To give managers a systematic way to think about their brands, Tuck School professor Kevin Lane Keller lays out the ten characteristics that the strongest brands share. He starts with the relationship of the brand to the customer: The strongest brands excel at delivering the benefits customers truly desire, he says. They stay relevant to customers over time. Pricing truly reflects consumers' perceptions of value. Keller then moves on to consider marketing strategy and implementation: Strong brands are properly positioned. The brand stays consistent. Subbrands relate to one another in an orderly way within a portfolio of brands. A full range of marketing tools are employed to build brand equity. Finally, he looks at management considerations: Managers of strong brands understand what the brand means to customers. The company gives the brand proper support and sustains it over the long term. And the company consistently measures sources of brand equity. By grading a brand according to how well it addresses each dimension, managers can come up with a comprehensive brand report card. By doing the same for competitors' brands, they can gain a fuller understanding of the relative strengths of their own brands in the marketplace.

Keller, K. L. (2011). How to navigate the future of brand management. Marketing Management, 20(2), 36-43.

The article offers guidelines on how to overcome the challenges of brand management. It emphasizes the importance of engaging in participation marketing by incorporating the voice of consumers into the marketer's branding decision to boost customer loyalty and to ensure success in the marketplace. It suggests the development of well-designed products and services which could give consumers various rational and emotional benefits. Moreover, it recommends the use of integrated channel and communication strategies to maximize the coverage and impact of the marketing program.

Keller, K. L. & Wester, F. E., Jr. (2009). The branding sweet spot. Marketing Management, 18(4), 12-17.

One of the challenges in modern brand marketing is the many strategic, tactical, financial and organizational trade-offs that seem to exist. Successfully developing and implementing marketing programs and activities, to build and maintain strong brands over time, often requires that marketers overcome conflicting objectives and realities in the marketplace. Guidelines and suggestions are offered on achieving marketing balance, to hit the branding sweet spot by arriving at "win-win" decisions that successfully reconcile marketing trade-offs.

Plagiarism should be zero percent.