I have been working on The Journal of the Medinge Group this weekend, including doing a few nip–tucks to the press release that Stanley Moss originally authored. Here it is, and the latest Journal articles—which are very, very good this year—can be found at medinge.org/journal.
   They are all compelling but I enjoyed Nicholas Ind’s one on market orientation, since a lot of my own branding research took Narver and Slater, and Kohli and Jaworski, as starting-points. Stanley Moss and Thomas Gad’s paper on the second wave of sustainability branding in Sweden confirms an earlier talk I gave on the ‘Swedenization of branding’. The papers are all still ahead of their time: when I read each one, which I had to do as their publisher, I felt I was learning at every turn.
   I have highlighted only three authors above, so let me say, and not because of lip-service, that it is hard to beat the real-world experience of Malcolm Allan, Ian Ryder, Patrick Harris, Sicco van Gelder and Tony Quinlan, whose papers are based directly on their practice, and not on sit-down theory.

International think-tank, the Medinge Group, publishes second issue of Journal

Stockholm, Seal Beach, Calif. and Wellington, September 2 (JY&A Media) The Medinge Group, a Stockholm-based think-tank on international branding, today announces publication of the second edition of its yearly online review, The Journal of the Medinge Group at <http://medinge.org/journal>. Exclusively digital, the collection of essays and thought provides a window into the think-tank’s evolving vision of humanistic branding.
   Medinge is closely watched in the business community for its vanguard thought. In 2003 the group inaugurated the yearly Brands with a Conscience award, which is frequently cited in international media. The awards are given every January at a private ceremony in Paris. The think-tank also runs a free-standing consultancy. Medinge’s gurus are sought after for their cross-category expertise.
   The new issue of the online Journal contains articles informed by the group’s leading-edge perspective, on topics ranging from place branding to strategy to value-creation.
   The September 2008 issue consists of the following papers.

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. Posted by Jack Yan, 02:20  permalink

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