Brand Management in a Midlife Crisis: The Brand Work Manifesto

Brand Management has not come to the end of the road, but it is facing a midlife crisis. In this phase questions of meaning and reorientation is not only reasonable for humans. In response to this necessary reorientation and realignment, we developed the so-called Brand Work Manifesto together with marketing experts working in brand consulting and brand management in 2019, and at the beginning of 2020 we started to put it up for discussion (Baumgarth et al. 2020), but for this the use of web design packages are great if you want to do marketing online. In eleven paragraphs which are divided into four meta principles, the old rules of brand management are opposed to the new rules. From the authors’ perspective brands have to become more open, agile, digital and authentic in order to cope with the changes in their environment. The term „Manifesto“ was chosen consciously, because of its historical meaning. Manifestos are regularly used in situations of political change (e.g. communist manifesto), cultural-artistic chance (e.g. Bauhaus Manifesto, Dadaist manifesto) as well as in times of economic change (e.g. Cluestrain Manifesto, Manifest of Agile Software Development) to formulate trenchant impulses for discussion. The Brand Work Manifesto does not claim scientific accuracy. Instead, it was created to stimulate a debate. More information is available on and www.brandworkmanifesto.org in our LinkedIn group.

Ottobock case in JBR

An article on the development of the technology brand Ottobock has recently been published in the renowned Journal of Business Research (A-Journal, Q1). Together with co-authors Dr. Samuel Kristal and Prof. Dr. Jörg Henseler, Prof. Dr. Baumgarth has analyzed the development of the Ottobock brand from a product orientation to a brand management and brand orientation to a co-creation approach in a single case study. The analysis shows, among other things, that co-creation is only meaningful and successful if the brand is professionally managed and strongly anchored in the corporate culture. Without this strong foundation co-creation can lead to a weakening of brands. Therefore, it is recommended to first to do your homework and take your employees with you before the brand is actively opened to all other stakeholders.

Summer Semester at the Berlin School of Economics and Law in times of Corona

Due to the Corona Crisis the full summer semester 2020 will take place online. The pressure to act quickly is resulting in a steep learning curve for professors and students. In order to emphasize on our effort to care and stay close to each other the Berlin School of Economics and Law started an Instagram campaign accompanied by the hashtag #hereweare, which I am happy to support.