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Martin Roll
Palgrave Macmillan, UK; 2006; 254pp; £25; hardback;
ISBN 1403992797
Martin Roll has written an excellent book in Asian Brand Strategy , providing welcome insights into some of the timeless principles of branding by demonstrating the ways in which Asian companies are building strong brands and will continue to do so in the coming years. Roll is a Danish citizen residing in Singapore, consultant to many companies as well as acting as Visiting Professor in Strategic Brand Management at the China European International Business School in Shanghai. The central contention of his book is that Asian boardrooms need to elevate brand strategy from the lowly position that it currently occupies in many companies in that part of the world. Roll sets this out in terms of what he calls a new paradigm for the Asian boardroom, comprising five interrelated elements.
The first element concerns the requirement for a change in mindsets in the Asian boardroom, away from a vision of branding as the sole responsibility of marketing managers to branding as the DNA and most essential function of the firm. Secondly, a sharper awareness of consumer behaviour patterns across Asia is called for, based on an understanding that Asia is not a homogeneous entity. Thirdly, managers need to abandon the old colonial stereotypes of Asia and instead recognise that Asian consumers desire their own type of modernity. Fourthly, Asian managers will have to become trendsetters...