Challenges and Opportunities Facing Brand Management: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Recent headlines in the popular press (e.g., "What's in a Name? Less and Less," "Brands on the Run," "Private Label Nightmare," "Marlboro Friday," "The Brand Leader's Dilemma") spell out the plight of brand or product management in today's tough competitive environment. Brand managers have been described as "murderers of brand assets" because such an important function typically has been left in the hands of relatively young, inexperienced managers, overloaded with analytical skills and often very short-term focused (Landler, Schiller, and Therrien 1991). The challenges posed by these conditions require a change in mindset as well as actions on the part of brand managers. These managers are challenged not only by the imperatives of the daily crises forced by customer and competitive market activities, but also by a need to think more strategically about the function of brand management itself. The purpose of this introduction, indeed of this special issue, is to examine issues affecting the state of brand management-the challenges as well as the opportunities