Branding New Kinds of Places: the Example of Experience Retail Centres
by Malcolm Allan
The author, a town planner and place and destination brand practitioner, discusses the challenges of creating place brand strategies for completely new types of urban development using the example of the emergence of places that combine retail, leisure, entertainment, sports, cultural and heritage facilities to a greater extent than has been seen hitherto.

How to Improve the Chances of Successfully Developing and Implementing a Place Brand Strategy
by Sicco van Gelder
This paper tries to answer critical questions by describing the criteria and factors that contribute to successful place branding. By assessing the place, the players and the plans they make, it is possible to predict the likely success of a place branding initiative.

An Introduction to Storytelling in Employee Branding
by Tony Quinlan
The real power and opportunity for using stories in organizations is in listening to stories, helping others to create their own authentic stories and making sense of the stories told.

Issues and Challenges of Developing and Managing Brand Strategy in a Not-for-profit (Chartered) Body
by Ian Ryder
The rules are different for chartered bodies. Not the fundamentals of brand strategy, clearly, but the processes and procedures of development and execution, as the author reveals.

Mythology, Leaders and Leadership
by Tony Quinlan
The author challenges the myths of leadership definitions, and puts forward research on leadership that works, requiring the support of legends, communication and role-modelling.

The Next Wave of Sustainability Hits Swedish Brands
by Thomas Gad and Stanley Moss
This article introduces the argument that Swedish brands have moved beyond other countries’ positions on sustainability.

A Participative Approach to Brand-Building
by Nicholas Ind
The argument of this paper is a simple one: creating value for customers is an organization-wide responsibility. The author reconsiders the market orientation papers of Narver and Slater and Kohli and Jaworski and introduces the concept of Participatory Market Orientation.

Saving Detroit, by Not Making the Same Old Mistakes
by Jack Yan
Detroit has not ever used a brand orientation in its automakers’ marketing strategies, and it talks of trimming brands and numbers to allow it to compete. The author believes in being more focused on brands and not losing economies of scale, and building more of what consumers want. The tools are there, such as consumer-targeted blogs, but manufacturers need to use them.

We the People
by Patrick Harris
This paper considers the importance of employees in the process of building customer experience. It states that internal investment is rewarded with consistent, quality customer exchanges. Brand values are presented as the currency to measure the worth of exchanges between organizations and their customers. The paper concludes by presenting a case study of the mobile operator, Orange, during the period 1994–2003.

About the Medinge Group
Founded in 2002, the Medinge Group first published a brand manifesto of eight statements encapsulating a vision of healthy brands for the future. In 2003, the group authored a collection of essays entitled Beyond Branding, which explored the ways in which brands could add value within alternative business and social models. In 2004, the group established the annual Brands with a Conscience list to recognize organizations who epitomize humanistic behaviour; in 2006, Medinge added a special category of recognition named in honour of its late colleague Colin Morley, which acknowledges excellence by an NGO, in keeping with Colin’s humanistic vision. The Medinge Group maintains an online, automated speakers’ and experts’ bureau accessible through its web site, www.medinge.org. In 2007 Medinge launched an online resource, The Journal of the Medinge Group, a digital anthology of papers and articles written by Medinge members.

Place Branding
by Malcolm Allan
   Places—countries, regions and cities—are increasingly developing strategies for brands. This is because they find themselves in competition with each other to retain and attract talented and creative people, innovative businesses, investors and consumers. The goal: offer valuable services and meaningful experiences to those they seek to influence.

Business, Brand, Innovation and Design
by Ava Maria Hakim
   This article looks at the design system and its impact on value creation, business and brand. Several informative diagrams and charts included.

PowerPoint—Rhetoric Machine (French)
by Pierre d’Huy
   Is PowerPoint an aid to communication or destructive force in the art of rhetoric? This essay in French deconstructs the controversial Microsoft presentation program from the point of view of a mediologist, making references to works by Roland Barthes and Régis Debray to support its conclusions.

PowerPoint—Rhetoric Machine (English)
translated by Stanley Moss
   Pierre d’Huy’s commentary of the ubiquitous application, tailored to English speakers.

Giving Strategy Some Momentum
by Patrick Harris
   Many strategies built by organizations are ineffective. Organizations tend to build snapshots instead of harnessing momentum.

Abstraction–Cubism
by Nicholas Ind
   This paper argues that rather than relying on the abstraction of research to get close to the customer, brand managers should work at building genuine relationships with customers by opening up the boundaries of the organization.

On Conscience
by Colin Morley
   An historically significant article written in 2004 examining the intellectual and semiotic underpinnings of brands with conscience. It is published with the permission of the estate of Colin Morley; his vision helped shaped Medinge’s yearly Brands with a Conscience awards, inspiring our yearly presentation to an NGO, named in his memory.

Linking Vision
by Ian Ryder
   Organizations often experience failure, either because of a flawed vision, or a shortfall of values. How then do we align internal and external communications to create sustainable competitive advantage as a route to a strong brand reputation?

Online Branding
by Jack Yan
   In the world of Web 2·0, the process surrounding vision, research, exposition and image differ slightly, even if the ingredients of brand equity remain the same. Loose vision, informal research and tapping into consumer advocacy all play a critical role.

Images
Images for this release may be downloaded from <http://jya.net/070813pr0.htm>.

About the Medinge Group
The Medinge Group was founded in 2000 as a not-for-profit collective of brand professionals, dedicated to innovative thought in the promotion of humanistic branding. In 2002, the Medinge Group published a Brand Manifesto of eight statements encapsulating a vision of healthy brands for the future. In 2003, the group authored a collection of essays entitled Beyond Branding (London: Kogan Page) which explored the ways in which brands could add value within alternative business and social models. In 2004 the group established the annual Brands with a Conscience list. In addition to the ongoing BWAC initiative, in January 2005 the Medinge Group launched an online, automated speakers’ and experts’ bureau accessible through its website, www.medinge.org.