The American auto industry is hurting-and two authors say they know why. Charlie Hughes, former head of Land Rover and Mazda, and veteran auto journalist William Jeanes, both friends of the house, outline the failures of the domestic industry in Branding Iron, a new book about "the devaluing of American auto brands, the pitfalls of following conventional wisdom and the need for courage to build a world class brand in an over-branded world." Hughes and Jeanes boil the domestic's downfall down and give a precise recipe for recovery, including differentiation, brand-centric cultures, new and innovative products, and above all, passion.

This book is about branding iron, as in Detroit Iron, as in cars.

Applying both a scalpel and an axe to the world of selling cars, we examine the role that branding has played in shaping the way Americans think about the cars we buy. And, sadly, an auto industry where the art of branding has fallen on some very tough times.

Branding Iron is about grit, the kind our forefathers used to tame the American West. They were rugged individualists-mavericks who carried six shooters and used them. Hard-nosed men and brave women who lived tough, often short, lives. They never owned a cell phone or read a marketing textbook, but they had the bravado to run the herd, not become part of it.

What has happened to us? We've gone safe, soft, and somnolent. And in the process we've lost our nerve. We've become Generation B: bland and boring. We equate risk with trying vanilla flavoring in our latte. We've joined the herd. Most of us, anyway. The car business is over a century old, yet it remains one of the most dangerous, daunting, and dynamic businesses on earth-an arena characterized by unthinkable financial risk, homicidal competition, and constant change. The car business provides a window on the world of branding and, more specifically, on how the value of a brand can disappear overnight-and how an industry can devalue the entire concept of branding and thus commoditize its own product. This trend is not limited to the auto industry, yet events and practices within this industry make it a showcase for costly muddled thinking.

For some time, much of the auto industry's management has displayed muddled thinking about marketing and branding. Over the last decade, trends-short-term sales focus to name one-unfavorable to brand building have accelerated. During this same period, too many auto executives have embraced faulty groupthink concerning what it takes to be a success. Because competition is suffocating, price has become all important. With that has come an almost obsessive focus on cost reduction. The drive to reduce costs is not wrong, but the dominant approach being used sacrifices much of what we know it takes to build great brands.

Branding is a tried-and-true business strategy with this underlying premise: if we distinguish ourselves with a defined audience, we will actually shift the demand curve positively. We will either be able to sell more cars at the same price or the same number of cars at a higher price. As competition has become super-heated, the clarity of that goal has been lost on all but a few.

We continue to talk about branding and invest in branding in

ways that are not supported by our results. In short, most companies

view branding too narrowly, ignoring that branding must permeate

every facet of an organization.

What makes a Ford a Ford, a Pontiac a Pontiac, a Jaguar a Jaguar, a Mitsubishi a Mitsubishi? Too many potential customers reply, "Who cares?" People have spent years of their lives and billions of dollars designing and marketing cars so that people can ask who cares. Isn't that comforting?

Because the industry views itself as a serious business, its leaders demand fact-based answers. Yet much of what they do rests on their views of the future and how customer's tastes will evolve over time. When forecasting the future, one must go beyond available numbers and rely on experience and intuition.

Branding Iron will challenge you in several ways. We know that many readers would like us to provide lots of facts and figures to substantiate everything we say, thus proving we're correct, in the process providing a formulaic approach that can be used in 10 Branding Iron arguments with all of the fact-finders out there. First, we provide a few basic benchmark facts that demonstrate the all-too-obvious.

Second, for more specific facts and figures, just look to the media. The stories are becoming repetitious; only the names change. Third, and most important, readers who want all that are missing the whole point. We wrote this book to prod you into action, to stimulate your thinking, to ignite your imagination and creativity, to urge you to go beyond rote regurgitation of numbers and tap into an energy field that lies beyond the obvious.