Shows how to eliminate the competition and become the lead brand in your market. This book defines the concept of brand relevance using dozens of case studies - Prius, Whole Foods, Westin, iPad and more - and explains how brand relevance drives market dynamics, which generates opportunities for your brand and threats for the competition.

Preface xiii 1. Winning the Brand Relevance Battle 1 Cases: The Japanese Beer Industry and the U.S. Computer Industry 1 Gaining Brand Preference 9 The Brand Relevance Model 13 Creating New Categories or Subcategories 17 Levels of Relevance 25 The New Brand Challenge 26 The First-Mover Advantage 30 The Payoff 34 Creating New Categories or Subcategories—Four Challenges 39 The Brand Relevance Model Versus Others 41 2. Understanding Brand Relevance: Categorizing, Framing, Consideration, and Measurement 47 Categorization 48 It’s All About Framing 53 Consideration Set as a Screening Step 62 Measuring Relevance 64 3. Changing the Retail Landscape 69 Cases: Muji 71 IKEA 73 Zara 74 H&M 76 Best Buy 77 Whole Foods Market 81 The Subway Story 86 Zappos 88 4. Market Dynamics in the Automobile Industry 97 Cases: Toyota’s Prius Hybrid 98 The Saturn Story 106 The Chrysler Minivan 110 Tata’s Nano 115 Yugo 118 Enterprise Rent-A-Car 119 Zipcar 122 5. The Food Industry Adapts 127 Cases: Fighting the Fat Battle 129 Nabisco Cookies 134 Dreyer’s Slow Churned Ice Cream 136 P&G’s Olestra 139 From Fat to Health 141 General Mills and the Health Trends 142 Healthy Choice 148 6. Finding New Concepts 157 Case: Apple 157 Concept Generation 165 Sourcing Concepts 169 Prioritizing the Analysis 192 7. Evaluation 197 Case: Segway’s Human Transporter 197 Evaluation: Picking the Winners 200 Is There a Market—Is the Opportunity Real? 202 Can We Compete and Win? 215 Does the Offering Have Legs? 220 Beyond Go or No-Go—A Portfolio of Concepts 223 8. Defining and Managing the Category or Subcategory 227 Case: Salesforce.com 227 Defining a New Category or Subcategory 234 Functional Benefits Delivered by the Offering 239 Customer-Brand Relationship—Beyond the Offering 254 Categories and Subcategories: Complex and Dynamic 260 Managing the Category or Subcategory 261 9. Creating Barriers: Sustaining the Differentiation 269 Case: Yamaha Disklavier 269 Creating Barriers to Competition 275 Investment Barriers 276 Owning a Compelling Benefit or Benefits 283 Relationship with Customers 290 Link the Brand to the Category or Subcategory 294 10. Gaining and Maintaining Relevance in the Face of Market Dynamics 297 Case: Walmart 298 Avoiding the Loss of Relevance 301 Product Category or Subcategory Relevance 302 Category or Subcategory Relevance Strategies 304 Energy Relevance 311 Gaining Relevance—The Hyundai Case 320 11. The Innovative Organization 327 Case: GE Story 327 The Innovative Organization 332 Selective Opportunism 334 Dynamic Strategic Commitment 339 Organization-Wide Resource Allocation 344 Epilogue: The Yin and Yang of the Relevance Battle 355 Notes 359 Index 371

THIS GROUND-BREAKING BOOK clearly defines the concept of brand relevance and shows what it takes to channel innovation and manage the competitive arena so that competition is reduced or eliminated. Throughout the book, branding guru David Aaker explains how brand relevance drives market dynamics using dozens of illustrative case studies involving brands such as Asahi Beer, Prius, Whole Foods Market, Hyundai, Zappos, Wheaties Fuel, Zipcar, Muji, Cafe Steamers, GE, SalesForce.com, and Apple. He reveals how brand teams have turned away from destructive brand preference competition by making other brands irrelevant. Adopting Aaker's brand relevance model—in which innovative offerings form categories and subcategories—provides dramatic opportunities for brand teams with insight and the ability to lead the market. As Aaker explains, successful brand relevance competition involves four vital tasks: concept generation, concept evaluation, creating barriers to the competition and, critically, actively defining and managing the new category or subcategory. It also involves being on top of the market, the competition, and the technology so that they get the timing right, a crucial element of a successful brand relevance strategy. Brand relevance is a threat as well as an opportunity to firms facing dynamic markets. Aaker shows how to avoid having a brand go into decline because people no longer consider it relevant. Brands that can create and manage new categories or subcategories making competitors irrelevant will prosper while others will be mired in debilitating marketplace battles or will be losing relevance and market position.