Kellogg on Marketing, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 13Brand Resilience: Surviving a Brand Crisis

Jonathan Copulsky

Resilience refers to the ability of a material, a person, or an organization to recover or bounce back quickly from difficulties. In today's hyperconnected and high‐speed world, brands face more threats than ever before. Resilient brands are brands that have cultivated the ability to survive, persevere, and thrive in the face of these threats. This chapter offers guidance in the form of a seven‐step framework for brand stewards and the organizations they serve for anticipating and responding to threats that might otherwise sabotage and undermine the brand value they have worked so hard to build.

Brands as Signals of Quality

On January 1, 1876, thanks to an industrious employee waiting in line overnight, the Bass Brewery logo and brand name became the very first trademark to be registered under the UK's newly enacted Trade Mark Registration Act. Although Bass and its Pale Ale brand are now part of the global brewing powerhouse Anheuser‐Busch InBev, its distinct logo and branding endure.¹

Over the years, other iconic global brands have emerged, including business‐to‐consumer powerhouses such as Apple, Disney, and McDonald's and business‐to‐business giants such as Caterpillar, Boeing, and Salesforce. These brands enjoy wide recognition, premium prices relative to competitors in their categories, and high levels of customer loyalty and advocacy. Iconic brands attract customers like flowers attract bees, not ...