Franz M. Schmid-Preissler

Of course it is part of the business model of publishing houses to publish new promising market strategies at the beginning of each year. As every year, I took the effort of looking at at least half a dozen of those books. After all, I do not want to miss out on anything, even if I already got several decades of working in this profession on my back and as such might be prone to think I already know everything and then overlook something truly new.

That market success is no coincidence is something experts from theory and praxis agree upon. Just the same as everyone agrees that it’s not „witchcraft“ and as such reserved for just those few who are well versed in wizardry.

However, there is a great deal of uncertainty how to achieve this market success. Is it the success of a skillful marketing-mix? Is it the amount of expenditures invested in advertising, sponsoring, PR or famous testimonials that determines success or failure? Or is pricing the “magic formula” in order to stay on course during market turbulences? Or does one simply have to create a good image that invokes feelings of security and trust with the customer so that the sale basically becomes automatic and self-sustaining? Surely, each point by itself and all of them together are important.

That a brand nowadays is in general the central value creation factor is accepted to a large extent. However, during the implementation often a shortened and one-dimensional understanding of what a brand is shows: A brand is marketing.