The Righteous Brand

Bringing order to the chaos of modern brand marketing, the second edition of Brand Love Is Not Enough combines an intuitive model of how consumers relate to brands, with an up-to-the-moment analysis of how brands are both victims and players in today's raging culture wars. Brand management now has to reach beyond traditional marketing objectives in order to encompass identity politics and corporate purpose. But with no grounding or guidance, marketers are swinging wildly from virtue signaling to "woke-washing"; and in the process, brands are being damaged and careers brought to an abrupt end. Uniquely, this book offers not only updated case studies and content relating to Max Blackston's respected Consumer Brand Relationships model, but goes on to show how an extension of the Brand Relationship concept-to include the ethical, moral, and political values of brands as well as their brand images-provides the tools for managing brands in this new environment. This new set of Brands' Moral Relationships allows a brand to embody the values of diverse groups of consumers, even strongly contrasting ones, and avoid becoming marooned in an identity-defined positioning. This book, besides being essential reading for practitioners, students, and researchers in marketing, advertising, and market research, provides fascinating insights for anyone who takes an interest in the brands they choose-or choose not-to buy.

Max Blackston is a brand strategist, market researcher, and consumer psychologist with a long record of innovation in the consumer sciences. Following stints as managing director of Unilever research companies in Milan and London, Max moved to New York as Head of Strategic Planning at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising. He became worldwide brand research leader at Research International, and consultant with Young & Rubicam's BrandAsset Valuator Group in New York. Max is founding partner at Blackbar Consulting.

Part 1 - Consumer Brand Relationships. Chapter 1 - The i-mage gap. Chapter 2 - The Relational Brand. Chapter 3 - Relationships with Packaged Goods Brands. Chapter 4 - Relationships with Prestige Brands. Chapter 5 - How Brand Relationships Mitigate Consumers' Risk. Chapter 6 - Relationships with Corporate Brands. Chapter 7 - Universal Brand Relationships. Chapter 8 - The Current and Future Value of Brand Relationships. Part 2 - The Righteous Brand. Chapter 9 - How brands navigate an era of social and political polarization. Chapter 10 - What is the Purpose of a brand? Chapter 11 - Brand Sanctity, the canary in the mine. Chapter 12 - Achieving Consensus with Brands' Moral Relationships