“It’s an exciting field”

Can you share a memorable case study or example of brand management that has deeply influenced your teaching?

Thank you for this question. My case study, titled Louis Vuitton in Japan, co-authored with Charlotte Ferrule from France, published by Ivey-Canada and distributed by Harvard Business School, has been the worldwide best seller case for 10+ years.  This covers the story of the Luxury brand LV and how they built a global brand and how they generated 25% of their revenue from the Japanese Market. I will be using this case in a Brand Management course.

One of your important contributions to marketing is the ‘masstige model.’ Can you explain briefly what purposes it serves?

Masstige means mass prestige. Once a brand succeeds in creating Mass Prestige, it gets the privilege to charge a premium price. Masstige Model is based on an equation 
Premium price = f (Mass prestige of the brand)
Masstige = f (Product, Promotion & Place strategies) 
Hence, Premium price = f (Product, promotion, & place)

I developed the Masstige score scale to help the brand managers to estimate the brand equity of a single brand in different markets as well as the brand equity of competing brands in the same market.

Could you say a few words as to how you’ll be conducting the class? What can students expect from the hands-on components of the course, such as case discussions and group work?

We will use a combination of traditional lectures, case studies, Kahoot-based exercises, numerical exercises, multiple choice questions, video cases, and group presentations.

As an internationally recognized expert, what advice would you give to students who are looking to build a career in brand management?

It’s an exciting field. The field has moved from traditional brand management based on conventional promotion and place strategies to Branding with the help of social media, artificial intelligence, etc. in the era of digital transformation.  You need to learn all these aspects.