Jonathan Knowles is the coauthor of five articles in the Harvard Business Review and fifteen in the MIT Sloan Management Review (nine of which form “The Strategy of Change” series). His articles have also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Marketing Strategy Journal, the Review of Marketing Research, the Journal of Interactive Marketing, Professional Investor, Intellectual Asset Management, The Marketing Journal and the AMA’s Marketing Management.
He has coauthored chapters on “The Marketing Implications of Financial Accounting” (2021) and “Orientation and Marketing Metrics” (2009), as well as a Marketing Science Institute working paper on “The Value Implications of Corporate Branding in Mergers” (2011).
He has collaborated on commissioned reports by LinkedIn’s B2B Institute (“The Three Drivers of Financial Value” 2024) and the Association of National Advertisers (“Marketing Impact Measurement Study” 2024 and “How Strong Brands Impact Financial Value” 2014).
He is coauthor of the book “Vulcans, Earthlings & Marketing ROI” (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008) and “The Ultimate CMO Guide to Beat Budget Hell” (Vicomte, 2025).
His writing focuses on three main topics – business strategy (especially the role of purpose, reputation, and brand in value creation); mergers (intangible assets, post merger integration, brand architecture); and performance measurement (accounting for marketing, brand valuation).
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Article Strategy
In the fifth article of “The Strategy of Change” series in the MIT Sloan Management Review, we explore how your innovation efforts need to be informed by the type of change you are trying to achieve. Published in October 2021
Article Strategy
In the fourth article of “The Strategy of Change” series in MIT Sloan Management Review, we explore how a focus on creating value for a broader range of stakeholders can result in much better strategy. Published in August 2021
Article Strategy
In this third article in our MIT Sloan Management Review series, we share three key insights emerging from the MADStrat research – the proportion of companies for which change in magnitude vs. activity vs. direction are appropriate; the need to be both relevant and distinctive; and the requirement to consider the interests of multiple stakeholders in order to develop truly sustainable strategies. Published in May 2021
Article Strategy
In our second article in the “strategic management of change” series in the MIT Sloan Management Review, we identify how traditional approaches to strategy development embody two assumptions (industry stability; and shareholder primacy) that limit their usefulness now that a dynamic, multi-stakeholder approach is required. We describe how a focus on fit to purpose and relative advantage provides the key to identifying what form of change is appropriate to the specific context of a business. Published in December 2020
Article Strategy
The word “change” covers a broad spectrum of possibilities – in the first article of “The Strategy of Change” series in the MIT Sloan Management Review, we identify the three major forms that change can take: magnitude, activity or direction. Published in August 2020
Article Measurement
We argue that marketers’ obsession with achieving balance sheet recognition for brands is misplaced because the purpose and practices of financial accounting involve requirements that brands cannot meet. Rather, we see a significant opportunity for marketers to propose changes to management accounting so that the internal accounts of the business better reflect economic reality. Published in September 2021
Article Strategy
Commentary on Nike’s masterful alignment of its brand with a social cause that was authentic for the company to champion – and that drove purchase consideration among its target customers, even as it provoked a negative response from peripheral customers.
Article Strategy
Coauthored with two senior marketing executives, we explore how B2B businesses have to go beyond talking about their capabilities (aka solutions) and focus on the outcomes that they enable their customers to achieve. We identify five areas in which change is required in order to reflect this orientation towards customer outcomes.
Article Measurement
Review of the relationship between design, ingenuity, intangible value and business value. My effort to help creatives articulate their contribution to business success.
Article Strategy
Brands are commercial constructs whose role is to persuade customers to buy. It is only a good strategy for a brand to define itself in terms of a social cause if it can do so authentically – and that the purchase behavior of its target customers is driven by their commitment to this cause.
