In the previous post, Nick and David talked about the narrative arc of the first Excellence Diploma module... the thrust of which being "what is a brand".

The scholars on this year's course have been devouring the reading list as set, but we'd like to open up to the wider community...

...if somebody asked you "what is a brand?" in 2011, what would you tell them to read or watch?

Answers in the comments section below, please.  We'll collate them all together in another post soon.

BTW - this is the current module one reading list:

Section 1 – What is Brand
•    What is a brand? (Stephen King) – video
•    What is Brand Equity, Anyway? (Paul Feldwick) – Chapter 1, What is a brand?
•    Brand New (Jane Pavitt) – Chapter 1 – In Goods we Trust
•    Understanding Brands (Gary Duckworth) – Chapter 3, Brands and the Role of Advertising
•    Brands and Advertising (Giep Franzen) – Chapter 4, Brand Equity Concept and Research
•    Kill a Brand, Keep a Customer (Nirmalya Kumar) – Harvard Business Review, Dec 2003

Section 2 – Some Context
•    Marketing Myopia (Theodore Levitt) – HBR 1975, Review Sept-Oct
•    The Business of Brands (Jon Miller & David Muir) – Chapter 3-12
•    Value Based Marketing (Peter Doyle) – Chapter 7, Building Brand Equity
•    Marketing 3.0 (Philp Kother) - Slideshare
•    The Future of Competition (C.K. Pralahad and Venkat Ramaswamy) – HBR, Sep 2003

Section 3 – Brand Types
•    Creating Powerful Brands (Leslie de Chernatony and Malcolm McDonald) – Chapter 6, Service Brands
•    Inside Out: How Employees Build Value (Nicholas Ind) – Journal of Brand Management August 2003
•    The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage (Joseph Pine II & James H Gilmore) – Chapter 1, Welcome to the Experience Economy
•    The Entertainment Economy: The mega-media forces that our re-shaping our lives (Michael J Wolf) – Chapter 3, The E-factor: There’s no Business Without Show Business
•    The World is Flat (Thomas Friedman) – Chapter 2, The Ten Forces that Flattened the World
•    The Globalisation of Markets (Theodore Levitt) – Harvard Business Review May-June 1983
•    The Lexus and the Olive Tree (Thomas Friedman) - Chapter 1, The New System: Chapter 3, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Conclusion, page 468 – 475 – where is this going

Section 4 – Leadership Brands
•    The Future of Brands: 25 Visions of the Future of Branding (Edited by Rita Clifton and Esther Maughan) - Interbrand
•    A New Brand World: 8 Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the 21st Century (Scott Bedbury and Stephen Fenichell) – Chapter 6, Brand Leadership
•    The New Marketing Manifesto (John Grant) – Chapter 1, The Four Cornerstones of New Marketing
•    Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders (Adam Morgan) –  Chapter 5, The Second Credo: Build a Lighthouse Identity
•    What becomes an Icon most? (Douglas B Holt) – Harvard Business Review, March 2003
•    No Logo (Naomi Klein) – Introduction: Chapter 1, New Branded World
•    Pro Logo vs. No logo: A Debate on the Role of Corporations in the World – The Economist, September 8th 2001
•    Brand Spirit (Hamish Pringle and Marjorie Thompson) –Chapter 7, The Three Waves in Branding
•    Leadership and The New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (Margaret Wheatley) – Introduction: Chapter 3, Spaces not empty: Chapter 5, Change, Stability and Renewal: Chapter 6, The Creative Energy of The Universe: Chapter 7, Chaos and the Strange Attraction of Meaning: Quotes on page 5 that introduce each chapter

Section 5 – The Future is…Communities
•    SuperCooperators: The Mathematics of Evolution, Altruism and Human Behaviour (Martin A Nowak and Roger Highfield) – Telegraph April 2011
•    The Cluetrain Manifesto (Rick Levine, Chris Locke, Doc Searls & David Weinberger)
•    The Power of Us – Business Week cover story, 20 June 2005
•    Right Side Up (Alan Mitchell) – Chapter 1, Marketing  turned right side up: Chapter 2, The Agency Revolution: Chapter 3, On the shoulders of giants: Chapter 4, The great incubus
•    TED lectures from The Rise of Collaboration vs Community Theme:
    -  Yochai Benkler: The new open-source economies
    -  Clay Shirkey: Institutions vs. collaboration
    -  Charles Leadbeater: Innovation OR Education innovation in the slums
    -  Nicholas A. Christakis: The Hidden Influence of social networks
    -  Seth Godin: The Tribes We Lead
    -  Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world
    -  Charles Leadbeater on innovation
•    Brand Communities: Getting Brand Communities Right (Susan Fournier and Lara Lee) – Harvard Business Review, April 2009
•    Communities Dominate Brands (Tomi T Ahonen) – Chapter 9, Generation C: Chapter 12, Trust Your Friend
•    Why communities are the future of brand communications (John Willshire) – Excellence Diploma Final Assignment 2007-08

"What’s a brand?

Four small words, one deceptively simple question, and the title of the first text in Module 1 of the Diploma.  Well, first video actually.  By Stephen King and Jeremy Bullmore; looking like The Two Ronnie’s, only twice as clever and twice as entertaining.

‘What is a brand?’ is also the overall narrative thrust of this kick- off Module of the Diploma.

The full reading list offers some 44 different attempts to answer the questions from guru’s such as Paul Feldwick through to John Grant. 

What becomes clear is that the idea of a brand is infinitely fertile.

It changes over time.  It flexes across types of business or enterprise.  It is used to shape products or individuals, companies or nations.  It adds value through consistency, through emotion, or through added experience.  It gives direction to consumers or to the organisation that owns it, and people that work for it.  It is a business tool and a cultural artefact.  It gives vision and purpose or simply entertainment and fun.

I guess the simple conclusion is ‘what do you want the brand to be’ is the real answer. The idea of a brand is ‘’superadaptive’’.

The reading goes on to also explore the same simple question with one added word…GREAT, as in what is a GREAT brand?

This section of reading leads with the Interbrand answer from their ‘Future of Brands’ book (a book I still keep on my own bookshelves).

“Out of some 2500 Interbrand Studies in brand valuation throughout the world, the most discriminating factor in generating long-term brand value at the highest level is leadership.  This is a brand’s ability to lead and exceed expectations, to take people into new territories and new areas of product, service and even social philosophy…it is a brand’s ability to be restless about self-renewal”. 
Source:  The Future of Brands.

Finally, we come to the last section of the Module….’what is a brand in the future’?

Here we bookend Mr King and Mr Bullmore with our very own Mr Willshire :- ex Diploma Student and current superblogger!

John’s final Diploma piece was on brands as communities and I must admit this is my latest’thing’. So he shares the final section with the likes of  Yochai Benkler and Tomi T Ahonen. All great believers and exponents of the power of communities

John, you may blush.  And sorry you are not quite the Third Ronnie, but I do actually believe you should be here alongside these legends.

After all, we can learn from those that came before us.  But, if it is a truth that brands are nature’s true survivors in their ability to be ‘fit for purpose’, then we must explore what they are  now vs. then.

The answer to ‘what is a brand’ in the first text of the module is, to paraphrase, ‘a brand is a ‘soft’ emotional relationship with the consumer (and a hard-headed answer to the power of the trade)’.

John’s answer is ‘a brand is the soft glue that binds us together in a brand community (and the hard loyalty that secures)’.

Which is it?

Or course they may not be ‘either, or’ answers. 

Or there might be a completely different answer.

As Big Brother would say ‘You decide’.

What is a brand?

What is a Great Brand?

What is a brand in the future?

David and Nick"

So what do you think a brand is? Are there any key texts you would suggest reading? Please share your thoughts with us...

Before the Excellence Diploma class of 2011-12 embark on their 18 month of study, which kicks off tomorrow with a 2-day Introductory Workshop, we asked them to tell us why they want to take the course and what they are hoping to gain from it. Here are a few of their thoughts:

Dylan Mouratsing (Kinetic Worldwide)

“At its core, the Diploma has an immense track record in attracting strong course leaders and alumni that have gone onto bigger, more exciting careers than when they started.  I'm looking forward to surrounding myself with these great minds.  If I'm really lucky, I'll have some of this success myself.”

Ross Farquhar (Diageo)

“I'm about to go where no client has gone before.  I can only hope that, given for once I'm not paying these guys, the agency folk on the diploma will be nice to me.  And that I remember how to do academic referencing.  Concerns just about outweighed with nervous excitement”

Pete Buckley (MEC)

“From all the evidence it's going to be a painful experience. Not just from the amount of reading but painful realising how little I know. They say the more you know the more you know you don't know, so I'm looking forward to going through a lot of pain to know I don't know very much at all.”

Mehul Ashra (Total Media)

“Everybody has been going on about how the diploma has changed everything for them, and I guess that's one of the feelings I'm looking forward to the most. Being equipped with the right material, surrounded by like-minded individuals, developing my knowledge in the world of brands, and being able to show the value of this in the day-to-day running of Total Media is something I find quite exciting.”

Tom Darlington (OMD)

“Doing the Excellence Diploma has been on my mind for a while. So, after deliberating about the consequences of putting my hand up I've slowly tip toed closer and closer to the edge of the precipice. To be looking over into the void, thinking what the next 18 months holds, fills me with excitement and fear in equal measure.”

James Stevens (The Blue Hive)

“For me, the course offers the opportunity to take a step back from the day-to-day demands of work and spend some quality time thinking on a richer, deeper level about our industry - whilst learning from, and with, some of the best talent in the UK.”

Tom Miskin (Weapon 7)

"because I have a sneaking suspicion none of us have the right answer; and I want to see if I'm right. Also, I'm looking forward to learning all the rules so I'll know when and how to break them.”

Waqar Riaz (RAPP)

“I think that people never leave brands, they switch products and I want to explore how businesses can create and maintain profitable brands in the age of information overload and data abundance.”

Simon Carr (M2M Media)

"So, the IPA Excellence Diploma starts next week. As much as the thought of an 18 month training course can seem overwhelming (friends have already told me they'll see me in 18 months time) I'm rather looking forward to getting inspired, meeting some bright people and hopefully emerging "supercharged" at the end of it all. And if I'm not I'll be asking John Willshire for a refund"

Zuzanna Czarniawska (Initiative) 

“The intensity and pace of workaday life in our industry can sometimes impact on the quality of our reasoning and it is all too easy for all of us to fall into a single, repetitive mode of thinking. I feel this course can help me to avoid this trap, open my eyes and enable me look further and wider.”

Good luck to all of you and all the others in the class of 2011-12. Stay tuned to here how they get on...