Toyota will soon displace General Motors as the world's largest automaker. Since 2000, GM's market cap fell from $66 billion to $15 billion. In 1980 GM sold 45 of every 100 cars that rolled out of showrooms in the U.S. It now sells 26. By any yardstick, that is a crisis. The root cause of this financial cataclysm mystifies many of the players in the industry. But the numbers tell a clear story. The headlines offer a simplistic interpretation. Or, worse, incomplete and myopic"the same kind of myopia that created the problem in the first place. Like many a crisis, this one has been brewing for decades. And the cost-cutting quick fixes proposed by many industry experts won't solve it. Why not? Because it's not the root cause. What is killing US automakers is their inability to attract growing numbers of customers to its numerous brands, many of which seem almost irrelevant today. In a few words: bad brand management. What makes a world-class brand? The authors describe great brands as a promise wrapped in an experience. The best brands make a strong, clear commitment to stand for something, to do it better than anyone else, and orchestrate the entire ownership experience. This requires a level of courage beyond most executives. With wit and humor, Branding Iron uses lessons from the car business to guide readers in every business on a quest to build a world-beating brand that leaves a real mark, one made the old-fashioned way"burned in with a red hot iron. The authors do the tough analysis and ask tough questions that most Boards of Directors should be asking, and they give even tougher answers.
About the Author: Charlie Hughes is one of the few men alive who has created a car company that's still in business. As founder and CEO of Range Rover of North America, which became Land Rover North America, he built a car company from scratch, beginning in 1986 with an investment of $7.5 million. Eight years later, this had grown to a market value of $200,000,000. During his career he has worked for six automakers on eleven different brands, including Cadillac, AMC, Jeep, Fiat, Lancia, Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen, Range Rover, Land Rover, and Mazda. He headed three different automotive marketing groups and was CEO of two auto companies. Today, Hughes heads a marketing consulting consortium, Brand Rules (www.brandrules.com) . As its founding president, he describes the firm's mission simply: In an over-branded marketplace, we help you learn what sets you and your company apartâ ]and how to cut yourself out of the herd. William Jeanes has spent more than three decades closely associated with the auto industry. After three years as feature editor at Car and Driver, he spent a decade in advertising, first as a copywriter at Campbell-Ewald (Chevrolet's ad agency), then at SSC&B: Lintas (where he became a senior vice president) and later at J. Walter Thompson/Detroit as a senior vice president and director of the Ford Division account. In 1985 he returned to writing. His articles have appeared in a score of the world's automotive publications and in Sports Illustrated, American Heritage, AARP The Magazine, Smithsonian Air & Space, Playboy, Parade, and The New York Times. In 1987, he became editor-in-chief of Car and Driver. During his six years as editor, he appeared regularly on CBS This Morning as its automotive expert, and his weekly radio commentary on Detroit's WJR reached 19 states. In 1993, he became a senior vice president and group publisher at Hachette Filipacchi Magazines. He was the founding editor of AMI Auto World Weekly, the first U.S. automotive magazine aim