“My total impression of any brand is made up of my experience of using it and whatever I have received, digested and accepted from the communications about it. Perhaps most important, my view of a brand’s personality depends on my impression of its competitors. Everything is relative…

How much our brand will appeal to people will depend on its relationships with competitors. This means that advertising [or other marketing communication] objectives must always be set in terms of: the changes desired in our brand; and comparison with other brands.”

JWT Planning Guide

“Brands need discipline. They need strategy. They need focus. They need to deliver. What they don’t need is a bunch of mercurial horseshit about being agile, which – let’s be honest – essentially means they bin the strategy and head in whatever direction the wind happens to be blowing at that moment. Most marketers need less agility, not more. They need to stick to the fucking plan. Or, in most cases, actually spend time building a plan to stick to.”

Professor Mark Ritson, via Marketing Week