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 Measurement
The concept of brand equity first emerged in the marketing literature of the late 1980s. The use of a financial term for what was actually a customer-based construct has been a highly effective technique for communicating the idea that brands are long-lived business assets that can have significant financial value.
Article Measurement
I was fortunate to collaborate with the great Tim Ambler on this review of how marketing metrics have evolved – but how their key role is still to ensure that a business has a market orientation.
Article Mergers
Our ambitious project to categorize the ten corporate brand options from which merging companies can select – and the messaging that customers, employees and investors will infer from each.
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!
