Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: By David F. D'Alessandro - Brief Article

Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand. By David F. D'Alessandro. McGraw Hill, 185 pages. $24.95.

This isn't a high-minded or carefully researched hook. Far from it. It's a highly personal narrative from the CEO of John Hancock Financial Services about his experiences and his views on what great brands are built from. The prose has the exuberance and irreverence of a gifted storyteller -- though D'Alessandro gives the actual writing credit to writer Michele Owens.

D'Alessandro's background in public relations and marketing -- he even worked for an advertising agency -- makes him a rare kind of CEO. He offers a host of personal observations, many as cautionary tales, and his rules (too long to...