Branding Iron: Branding Lessons from the Meltdown of the US Auto Industry Hardcover - 2006

Charlie Hughes is one of the few men alive who has created a car company that's still in business. As founder and CEO of Range Rover of North America, which became Land Rover North America, he built a car company from scratch, beginning in 1986 with an investment of $7.5 million. Eight years later, this had grown to a market value of $200,000,000. During his career he has worked for six automakers on eleven different brands, including Cadillac, AMC, Jeep, Fiat, Lancia, Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen, Range Rover, Land Rover, and Mazda. He headed three different automotive marketing groups and was CEO of two auto companies. Today, Hughes heads a marketing consulting consortium, Brand Rules (www.brandrules.com) . As its founding president, he describes the firm's mission simply: In an over-branded marketplace, we help you learn what sets you and your company apart ]and how to cut yourself out of the herd. William Jeanes has spent more than three decades closely associated with the auto industry. After three years as feature editor at Car and Driver, he spent a decade in advertising, first as a copywriter at Campbell-Ewald (Chevrolet's ad agency), then at SSC&B: Lintas (where he became a senior vice president) and later at J. Walter Thompson/Detroit as a senior vice president and director of the Ford Division account. In 1985 he returned to writing. His articles have appeared in a score of the world's automotive publications and in Sports Illustrated, American Heritage, AARP The Magazine, Smithsonian Air & Space, Playboy, Parade, and The New York Times. In 1987, he became editor-in-chief of Car and Driver. During his six years as editor, he appeared regularly on CBS This Morning as its automotive expert, and his weekly radio commentary on Detroit's WJR reached 19 states. In 1993, he became a senior vice president and group publisher at Hachette Filipacchi Magazines. He was the founding editor of AMI Auto World Weekly, the first U.S. automotive magazine aim