Kevin Clark is program
director, Market Intelligence and Business Development for IBM Personal
Systems Group (PSG). He is the brand steward for the IBM Think family
of personal computer offerings, including IBM ThinkPad notebook
computers, IBM ThinkCentre desktop computers, and IBM ThinkVision
monitors. His team orchestrated the IBM Think Strategy that balances
external innovation for customers with internal operational efficiency.
He and his team work on marketing and business strategies, brand
strategy, market intelligence, market research, marketing plans,
customer experience strategy, and global customer requirements for
end user computing. He joined IBM Mobile Computing eight years ago
in a strategic marketing role to create and maintain brand equity
for IBM ThinkPad notebook computers in the marketplace. He is also
president and managing member of Content Evolution LLC Worldwide,
a content creation and entity, specializing in publishing and non-profit
consulting; not related to IBM.
Kevin has finished the manuscript for a brand
strategy book titled Brandscendence: Three Essential Elements
of Enduring Brands being published by Dearborn Press in
the summer of 2004. He is also a contributing writer to Wireless
Rules: Customer Relationship Marketing Anytime. Anywhere, published
by McGraw-Hill in 2001, and is the author of the new media chapter
for The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations and Integrated Communications
published by McGraw-Hill in 1997. "The IBM Think Strategy:
When Business Strategy and Branding Come Together" by Kevin
Clark and Mark McNeilly will be published in Strategy and Management
magazine in the spring of 2004, and Listening and Leading in User-Focused
Design by Kevin dark and Kazuhiko Yamazaki was published in Proceedings:
Exploring Emerging Design Paradigm, Oullim of the International
Council of Societies of Industrial Design, 2001 Seoul, Korea.
Kevin joined IBM in Charlotte, North Carolina,
in 1979. He has held a variety of marketing, management and communications
positions since joining the company. He has been program director,
communications, for Networked Applications Services; manager, communications,
for the Interactive Broadband Services group, part of the corporate
strategy staff; and manager, IBM United States public relations.
He is the IBM PCD Executive Advocate for NASA and United Space Alliance,
Nationwide Insurance, and Deutsche Telekom. He has lectured at Duke
University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Northwestern
University, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fordham University,
Pace University, and Keio University in Japan.
Kevin is a member of the IBM Market Intelligence
Leadership team, the IBM Market Management Executive Committee,
and the IBM e-Business on Demand Executive Committee. He serves
on the Boston College Marketing Advisory Board, has served on the
steering committee for the MIT Media Lab, and has been an instructor
for the IBM Corporate Marketing Management Institute. He attended
the IBM Senior Leadership Forum at Harvard Business School, Wharton
Business School executive class on Creating World Class Capabilities,
IBM's MBA Fundamentals program, and several programs at IBM's Corporate
Management School, including the global Business Management Institute.
He is listed in several Who's Who publications, including Who's
Who in America, Who's Who in the South, and is a member of the North
Carolina Writers Association, International Visitors Council, and
a professional member emeritus of the National Speakers Association.
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Brandscendence
™
Three Essential Elements of Enduring Brands by Kevin A.
Clark
(Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
"Brandscendence"- the fusion of "brand" and
"transcendence" - brands that go beyond ordinary limits.
World-class commercial brands such as BMW, Coke, Disney, General
Electric, IBM, and even not-for-profit institutions such as the
Red Cross are on the journey to Brandscendence. They have enduring
reasons for being, yet adapt to changing circumstances and evolve
over time.
Brandscendence is designed to simplify the branding conversation
to make brand strategy accessible to anyone - and to any organization.
Clark uses success stories and examples to illustrate his theory
on the three essential elements enduring brands must manage: relevance,
context and mutual benefit. First is the organization's or product's
enduring relevance to the customer. Next is the context in which
the brand must adapt to cultural shifts or changing economic needs
of customers over time. Relationships are then turbocharged when
all stakeholders perceive mutual benefit, which creates a bank of
goodwill to nurture future interactions - and is crucial in times
of crisis.
Once you read Brandscendence you'll be able to see branding at work
every day and the heavy lifting it does all around you.
Brandscendence studies the broader role of branding and, through
what Clark dubs "BrandNext ™," it's strategic applications
for the future. Chapters include industry sector analysis with exciting
collaborative input from some the country's foremost experts in
business and academia who study marketing and branding.
Kevin Clark is the brand steward for IBM ThinkPad notebook computers
and IBM ThinkCentre desktop computers, and is program director for
brand strategy, market intelligence and integrated marketing for
the IBM Personal Computing Division. The IBM brand is assessed at
$52 billion, the third most valuable brand in the world, and IBM
ThinkPad is generally considered to be the most valuable sub-brand
of company. He is also president of Content Evolution ™, LLC,
a content creation and strategic consulting company working with
not-for-profit organizations. An established authority in his field,
Clark is in demand as an international lecturer having presented
his ideas at conferences and some of the world's foremost business
schools.
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