Book Review, Rebuild, by Ramya Ramamurthy, published by Hachette: Keep your brand crisis playbook handy

What is your brand? Colas, chocolate, multi-national brands, private taxis, airlines, cricket, computers, chit fund, internet shopping site, automobiles, mobile phones, pharmaceuticals, photographic film and cameras, brand store, bookstore, social network, alcohol, machine tools and watches? Whatever your brand, you will never know when a crisis might hit you, as it did brands in all the above categories. Here’s Ramya Ramamurthy documenting the crises that hit each one of the above, and how they coped, or did not cope well, with them. The Hachtete paperback edition of Rebuild is in 420 pages and is priced at Rs. 450. Since it was published four years ago, it is currently available in the Hardcover edition on Amazon for Rs. 230.

I got to read this book after her second one, titled Branded in History, which traced the development of brands from British rule days to the mid twentieth century. While it was exactly what it promised, it was not text book material, as I had mistakenly thought. The first book has all the seeds of the second book, which seems to have emanated from the first book, in any case. It is like she was doing Branded in History and thought that she had an expert panel which she could quote, and had herself lived through an era which was plagued with brands facing crises of gigantic proportions. The obvious moral of the story is that companies that have a crisis management programme and a crisis management team in place are always better equipped to deal with crises.

Contamination in colas, worms in chocolates and mercury dumped illegally by a gargantuan multi-national, are all Indian crises, and figure in the first 51 pages of the book. To sort of sum up the contents of every chapter, Ramya provides Key Takeaways at the end of every chapter. This would serve as a guide to anyone who wants to answer questions about the contents of the chapter, in brief, a là ‘write short notes on’.

In her 9-page introduction, she tells readers that she has “…tried to provide an all-encompassing guideline for understanding brands in crisis.” That it, no doubt, is. Sometimes, though, one feels that she has over-written parts and quoted too many authoritative figures, quoting them several times and using long quotes. Page Nos. 403-420 consist of referential notes, and the book ends with two pages of errata. I had thought this custom was passé, but there you are.

There is nothing exciting about the cover and there are no pictures, which makes it heavy reading. No wonder it took me a long time to finish it.

Paper is yellowish and the fonts used are small to medium. Bold is used rarely.

Ramya Ramamurthy studied English Literature at Mumbai University and got a Diploma in Broadcast Journalism from the Asian College of Journalism, in Chennai. After a stint with CNBC TV18, she gave up her job to start writing documentaries, for channels like Star World and National Geographic.