Branding guru David Aaker updates his signature playbook for volatile times

After writing six seminal books on branding, David Aaker recognized that he had a problem: his insights were spread across more than 1,800 pages.

“People would come to me and say, ‘Which book should I read?’ says Aaker, the E.T. Grether Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Public Policy, who has earned a reputation as the “father of modern branding.” To solve that problem, he published a new book “Aaker on Branding,” in 2014, which consolidated his prior work into one concise volume.

Flash forward 11 years and Aaker faced a similar challenge: He’d published three more books and 200 blog posts, which led him to decide to release a second edition: “Aaker on Branding: the Playbook to Building Strong Brands.” The updated book—still a slim 200 pages—includes seven new chapters distilling Aaker’s work since 2014 on signature storytelling, building brand communities, purpose-driven branding, and staying relevant amid continuous disruption and innovation.

“Times have changed,” he says. “We’ve got a hyperdynamic business environment and many businesses have put a lot of resources into ineffective social efforts. We’ve got a hostile communications environment. We’ve got media clutter. We’ve got audience skepticism. We have the resurgence of short-termism. All that was there 11 years ago, but it’s all been magnified.”

The modern branding revolution

Aaker’s keen insights—supported by rigorous statistical analysis—changed the branding game for businesses beginning in the late 80s, a period of mass downsizing and cost-cutting aggressive tactics to increase market share.

“Companies were destroying brands,” he says. “By the late 80s, people were saying ‘It’s just not working. We’re not getting sales growth and we’re losing profits. We need a different strategy.’ And that’s when the idea of brand equity was introduced.”

He released his landmark book, “Managing Brand Equity,” in 1991, followed by “Building Strong Brands in 1996.” He has since written a dozen more books and more than 100 papers on marketing and branding, and his work helped elevate marketing into a core strategic function in organizations.

“A successful brand does not represent empty dreams,” he said in a 2014 profile in California magazine, “but, rather, what the organization actually has the will and resources to deliver.”

Aaker also serves as vice chair at Prophet, a global marketing and branding consultancy, where he continues to blog on brands. In 2015, he was inducted into the American Marketing Association Hall of Fame for his lifetime achievements in marketing.

The Five B’s

The new edition of “Aaker on Branding” includes updated frameworks, case studies, and practical tools. Central to Aaker’s approach is his “Five B’s” framework:

• Brand equity: Consisting of brand relevance, image, and loyalty, brand equity is a strategic brand asset you own and grow that enables the organizational strategy.
• Brand relevance: Having the visibility and credibility to stay top-of-mind.  
• Brand image: How your audience actually sees you and feels about you.
• Brand loyalty: Why customers stick with you, engage with you, and advocate for you. Its inclusion in brand equity elevated marketing from a tactical middle management role into the C-Suite.
• Brand portfolio: Brand equity is not built in isolation; each component draws on other portfolio brands, such as sub-brands, co-brands, and branded differentiators.

“In general, brands are very bad at brand portfolio strategy,” he says. “I can go into organizations and say, ‘What’s your secret sauce? What makes you special?’ And they can give me an eloquent two-minute description. And I say, ‘How come it’s not branded across your products?’”

Since the first edition, traditional advertising has given way to digital and social media marketing, driven by storytelling to create emotional connections. AI is allowing for more sophistication and customization than ever. And despite the recent backlash against DEI and ESG, Aaker believes that purpose-driven marketing is critical to instill loyalty among today’s consumers.

But it can no longer be used as a superficial tactic and must be deeply integrated into business strategy, he says.

“My mission is to convince people that social good can help the business by helping the brand, giving an energy, image, and engagement that they can’t get any other way,” he says. He uses the example of Dove, which grew their business from about $2.5 billion to $6.5 billion after launching Dove Real Beauty, which inspired their customers and employees.

“The challenge should be to reposition social effort so it’s no longer just to solve problems. It’s to solve problems, and to help a business.”

Read the full book:

“Aaker on Branding: The Playbook to Building Strong Brands,” By David Aaker. Released May 6, 2025.