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, Professional Investor, Intellectual Asset Management, the Review of Marketing Research, the Journal of Interactive Marketing, 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 is coauthor of the book “Vulcans, Earthlings & Marketing ROI” (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008).
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 (economics vs accounting, performance metrics, valuation).
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Article Strategy
A light-handed but serious attempt to educate marketers about how to express the business impact of their work. Sponsored by the Institute of Canadian Agencies and coauthored with the vice chairman of Ogilvy & Mather in Canada, this book allowed me to integrate my thoughts around strategy, finance and marketing.
Article Measurement
Our commentary about how companies with strong science or engineering prowess may misunderstand the true basis for their brands. Customers only care about your technology to the extent that it enables them to achieve their outcomes!
Article Measurement
My explanation of the multiple definitions of “brand” and the circumstances in which each definition is relevant.
Article Measurement
Marketing and Finance have a famously fractious relationship, but each is a source of vital insight. Marketing illuminates the task of value creation while Finance illuminates the task of value capture. Together they form the basis for sustainable business success.
Article Measurement
This article review the findings from the integration of the Stern Stewart database on corporate performance with the Y&R database on brand strength. Together they reveal the extent to corporate valuation is a reflection of current financial performance and brand equity (serving as the proxy for anticipated future financial performance).
Article Mergers
Only about one in five merger transactions actually creates shareholder value. We argue that marketing’s focus on value creation is a vital ingredient to a process that is currently focused too heavily on the things that might cause the deal to fail, rather than the things that will make it succeed.
