‘A very insightful book on how to manage and counterbalance a new challenge to world-class brands: antibrand activists and negative influencers in the age of social media. Dr Sood offers very practical strategies to shield your brands from negative attacks and fake news.’ - Jagdish N. Sheth (Padma Bhushan), Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Business, Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

‘Branding has never been more fun to read! From fake news to brand hacktivism, the author cautions against these various weapons of brand destruction and provides strategies to counter your brand’s doppelganger.’ - Gagan Sood, CEO, GE Power Conversion Americas, GE, New York, USA

‘This book is full of fun stories and examples of brand doppelganger imagery. The author shows how fake news and brand hacktivists can destroy your brand and provides strategies needed to counter the doppelgangers. A must-read for all branding professionals, students and pop culture followers.’ - Atul Parvatiyar, Director, Center for Sales and Customer Relationship Excellence; Professor of Practice, Marketing and Supply Chain Management, Rawls College of Business, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA

‘Gaurav’s passion is infectious, and the book has a compelling narrative on the brand of wicked doppelgangers who have an aim in sight to tarnish the image of brands. The author interestingly weaves the story around the evolution of doppelganger in the virtual world and his methodologies of carefully crafting negative imagery, creating attractive but damaging memes, trolling the brands exploiting their vulnerable spots and hacking their information to deliberately expose the negative sides of the brand. The doppelganger can be a harassed consumer, anti-brand activist, a clever competitor, an influencer or a media. The author plays with the fire of torching the brand of the companies through developing a brand alter ego, a doppelganger who can be a troll, hacktivist or an influencer. The topic is contemporary though having lots of grey and dark shades. Each page is generously scattered with carefully researched brand examples. Gaurav strategically establishes the factors leading to the creation of the brand doppelganger imagery, reassuringly emphasizes the art of storytelling and suggests counter strategies to combat and manage the menace of doppelgangers by bringing in the brand’s positivity through knowing the pulse of their consumers and genuinely responding to their wants, needs and queries. The author has a razor-sharp insight and incisive analytic ability to bring to the fore the finer details of the uncanny world of the doppelganger, the brand alter ego, that makes this book one of the best branding’s reference books around and a must-read for students, educators and industry professionals alike.’ - Dr Amit Kapoor, President and CEO, India Council on Competitiveness

‘Dr Gaurav Sood has written an amazing book on branding which is much needed by the industry and academics. The entire branding paradigm has changed as there are drastic changes among the consumers, companies, competitors, media and society. This change is wonderfully narrated in the book. Must-read for all the marketing and business professionals.’ - Professor Varsha Jain, Marketing; Co-chairperson, Doctoral Programme and Research, MICA, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

‘A must-read book for branding enthusiasts and pop culture followers.’ - Professor Sandeep Puri, Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines

‘This book has some very interesting insights on important issues such as brand doppelganger imagery, culture jamming, fake news and internet trolls that many brands face today.’ - Dr Sunil Thomas, Professor, California State University, Fullerton, CA, USA

‘This book is a storyteller! It weaves real cases from the world of branding to explore the phenomenon of brand doppelganger imagery.’- Sumit Sehgal, Director, Samsung SDS

‘A must-read for all digital marketers as this book analyses various forms of online consumer backlash and how consumers, competition and public at large create a brand doppelganger imagery using the social media platforms to damage the brand’s imagery.’ - Amitabh Verma, Ex-Google; Founder and CEO, AMP Digital

‘The concept of brand doppelganger has been very fascinatingly brought up by Dr Sood and his breadth of experience in industry and academia has lent weight to his insights and theories on the subject. Media landscape, both offline and online, is haunted by fake news, trolls and consumer backlashes which make the big brands vulnerable to the creation of their own doppelganger.’ - Rajiv Dubey, Senior General Manager and Head of Media, Dabur

‘Most books on branding make few connections to the current brand management environment. This book written by Dr Gaurav Sood is designed explicitly for the new world of brand and branding. A blend of theory and practice, with cases from the global brands, the book brings alive the critical dimensions of ‘brand doppelganger’ in a crisp yet comprehensive manner.’ - Hari Krishnan, Strategic Advisor, Culture Drum

‘A truly International brand playbook. Gaurav’s arguments are thorough and persuasive and his breath of academic and professional experience all across the globe has helped to reflect in his story telling. The book Troll Proof Branding in the Age of Doppelgangers take aim at the darker side of the brand and the impact of the brand doppelgänger on the reputation of the brand. The book is an eye-opening reportage and wonderful analysis of how trolls, fake news, hacktivism and culture jamming creates brand’s own doppelganger and threatens its image in the popular culture. Gaurav has carefully analysed cases from across the world of brands which are victim to its own doppelganger. The book is a must-read for marketers and students to learn how to develop counter strategies and manage the brand doppelganger.’ - Douglas Quintal, Sr Executive-in-Residence, Emerson College, Boston, MA, USA

Professor (Dr) Gaurav Sood is a brand evangelist, researcher, educator, speaker, columnist and author, with more than two-decade practice creating strong brands. He has been an integral part of developing and managing marketing and integrated marketing communication campaigns for global brands in India, Germany and the United States. He has carved out a niche as a brand strategist and pioneer in the domain of brand research. He has seen the evolving face of global media and advertising and contributed immensely towards rejuvenating and lending a fresh perspective towards brand communication to major corporate players in the realms of engineering, IT, telecommunications, FMCG, services, consumer durables and media marketing-in both in India and the United States.

He is Professor of Marketing at Amity School of Business, Amity University, India. His research work has focused on the nouveau field of ‘doppelganger brand imagery’, and his research papers and articles have been published in leading academic journals and business and marketing magazines. His work has also achieved remarkable acceptance by academicians and practitioners across multiple fields. He has also authored three books:

1. Impact of Doppelganger Brand Image on Indian Premiere League (IPL)-2020
2. Global Business Strategies for Sustainability-2019, co-edited by Gaurav Sood and J. K. Sharma
3. Global Business Strategies for Sustainability-2021, co-edited by Gaurav Sood and J. K. Sharma

He is an alumnus of Amity University (PhD); Emerson College, Boston; Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad; and Panjab University, Chandigarh. He is a notable guest blogger at BW Businessworld.

Dr Sood is also on the editorial board of reputed international journals such as International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition (IJDAR) and International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management.