Concepting

By Jan Rijkenberg

This is an interesting book that looks at one of the key themes in branding today. Manufacturers and brand owners are having to find new ways to provide genuine, sustained differentiation for their brands. This is at a time when any new product or service development can be easily copied, rendering any competitive advantage short-term only. Developing emotional brand values is working less as they are equally easily copied. Just think of advertising for products such as beer and cars and think how easy it would be to change the brand name and nobody would by any the wiser. 

The answer, says Rijkenberg, is concepting. This takes a different approach to brand-building by building the brand before developing the product or service. It is no longer about the 4Ps but one P is over-riding- the promotion. The promotional elements are used to define the brand with the other Ps following later. The result is that a differentiated and sustainable brand can be built that is very difficult to copy without making a very obvious me-too. Any attempt to copy the brand, rather than the product or service, is doomed to failure. Once the brand has been established, appropriate products and services can be developed that fit with the brand personality and help to enhance it.

The book describes concept brands and how they can be built in-house by dedicated teams. There are examples of concept brands such as Virgin, Davidoff and Swatch. One major failure of the book is that examples are too sparse. While the author describes the theory of concepting and concept brands, he does not go into much detail about how it works in practice. How were the concept brands built? In addition, case studies of successful concept brands would be very useful to bring the theory to life and show how it works in practice. 

Otherwise, this is a very useful book for anyone in brand development. 

Review by Martin Payne