In the marketplace of the 21st century, the critical form of customer communication will be broader than advertising and promotional messages. Customers have relationships with the brand, combining all the forms of communication that give meaning to products and services. Brand communication creates an interactive relationship between the product or service and consumers, which is a major change in the way advertisers and marketers have traditionally viewed customer communication.

Authors Don Schultz and Beth Barnes have built on the foundation of their best-selling text, Strategic Advertising Campaigns, to create a book that embodies this new approach to advertising and marketing communication: Strategic Brand Communication Campaigns.

This innovative text focuses on the messages and incentives customers receive, rather than what marketers send out, which differentiates brand communication management from advertising management. The brand will drive the 21st century marketplace, and students need to develop the skills necessary to plan and execute brand communication campaigns.

Strategic Brand Communication Campaigns shows students how to produce successful campaigns in the dynamic marketplace of the future. The book

• Emphasizes the identification and management of the many ways customers come in contact with a brand and how they relate to it.
• Explores the interactive relationship between customers and the marketing messages and incentives that are created through brand communication.
• Provides students with the fundamentals of developing and executing comprehensive and contemporary campaigns with an emphasis on brand building.
• Reflects changes in the marketplace, consumers, technology, media, marketing, and advertising to keep students' knowledge current and applicable. Addresses the role of advertising planning as a part of brand communication campaigns.
• Features more real-world examples so students can see how professional advertisers and marketers conduct effective campaigns.
• Presents practical guidelines and applications for preparing successful campaigns in a concise, visually appealing text that will capture students' attention.

Parts 1 and 2 of the text introduce students to the brand concept, how it has evolved, and why it is critical to successful marketing in today's environment. Students also gain an understanding of the relationship between consumer behavior and brands and discover how to apply brand-building concepts to achieve brand value.

Parts 3 and 4 provide a handbook for creating, implementing, and evaluating cohesive brand communication campaigns. Advertising, media, public relations, direct response, and sales promotion strategies are examined. Students learn how to deliver forceful messages and incentives and how to measure their effectiveness.

I would have liked to see a little more than the few pages offered on the use of interactive media but those offered did include examples of web pages and other useful visual information. As the authors rightly point out, not all communications will be interactive in the future and students must not lose sight of other forms of communications.

Overall I found the short paragraphs and clear layout easy to use during lectures.

A really useful textbook.

It is too conceptual and theoretical. The real world does not really do IMC quite like that. IMC is still both art and science. The author(s) tend to look at IMC, from a branding perspective, in a dry,boring, and uncreative fashion.Many jargons have been invented in the book. But are they really practical? The book has not thrown in enough cases or examples to explain or illustrate most of the untested theories or concepts convincingly.

Personally, I guess Beth E. Barnes did most of the writing, and Don E. Schultz did most of the so called new concepts or theories invention.

I recommend books like Experiental Marketing, Experience Economy-- they are far more interesting, and practical!