Book, Line & Sinker
Leadership Brand
By Dave Ulrich and
Norm Smallwood
In Leadership Brand: Developing CustomerFocused Leaders to Drive Performance and
Build Lasting Value, authors Dave Ulrich and
Norm Smallwood explain the differences
between leaders and leadership, and how not
recognizing these differences can result in a
breakdown of understanding among corporate
leaders, employees, and the customers they
value. An effective leadership brand is not about
individual personalities or management styles,
but performance and lifestyle—attributes that,
by the force of example, establish brand identity
and promulgate shared awareness throughout
the corporate and consumer realms based on a
communal sense of purpose and trust.
Creativity: Unconventional
Wisdom from 20 Accomplished
Minds
By Herb Meyers and
Richard Gerstman
The Art of Digital Branding
By Ian Cocoran
The Art of Digital Branding provides readers with
in-depth, informed, and insightful advice for
utilizing the Web to enhance branding. Written by
brandchannel contributor Ian Cocoran, this book
meticulously researches and explains how and
why digital branding succeeds or fails. The scope
of the content is comprehensive and describes
both the human aspects of digital branding and
practical online business paradigms. The book
also breaks down the concepts of branding into
manageable discussions that offer conclusions
based on real-life examples. It also examines
luxury branding, corporate philanthropy, and
teaches how emotional intelligence is an important
part digital culture.
More Than A Name: An
Introduction To Branding
By Melissa Davis
By Sandra Sellani
Naming may be the most fascinating aspect
of branding (sorry, marketing folks). A little
brainstorming, a list of irresistible names, a
delighted client. Simple, right?
Edited by Neil Taylor
Hidden in Plain Sight: How
to find and execute your
company’s next big growth
strategy
By Erich Joachimsthaler
How did Sony, with its 20-year Walkman history,
cede dominance in the portable media player
industry to Apple, which (until the iPod) was
known as just a computer company? According
to the author, a brand can “obsess over serving
customers or winning the product innovation
game”—yet miss “what matters to people
altogether.” These consumer habits and needs
are “hidden in plain sight.”
The book introduces the “demand-first innovation
and growth (DIG) model” to understand consumer
behavior and create not competitive advantage
but customer advantage. Brands should view
opportunities “not simply from a brand or product
perspective but from this more complex vantage
point of the ecosystem of consumer demand.”
Fittingly, this introduction to branding is colorful,
lively, and compelling. The pages are full of
photographs, meaningful interviews, practical
theories, and plenty of illustrations, logos, and
examples of successful—and unsuccessful—
branding campaigns. More Than A Name
addresses the psychology behind branding and
explains that branding is a complex endeavor
fraught with challenges. Success is never
guaranteed and, if achieved, never static. Culture
is cons tantly changing, which means perceptions
are constantly changing, which means branding
must constantly change, too. This book is for visual
arts students or professionals interested branding
fundamentals such as differentiation, changing
trends, reputation, and capturing “brand spirit.”
The Name of the Beast:
The perilous process of
naming brands, products, and
companies
What’s Your BQ?
The key for any brand—whether it’s a new one
entering a crowded market or an established
one fending off upstarts—is differentiation (and
then communicating that differentiation to its
customers).
The book’s 40-question brand quotient (BQ) quiz
covers strategy, alignment, communication, and
execution to determine whether your brand has a
sustainable competitive advantage.
Low BQ? Don’t worry. The majority of the book
is a rundown of strategies behind the success of
nearly three dozen brands, from familiar ones
like Netflix (change consumer buying habits in
your favor) to offbeat ones like the Church of Tom
Jones (be strange). And the concluding section
on planning a brand strategy rounds out an
education on developing the “ability to get into
the minds and often the hears of your prospects—
and stay there.”
Though employees are often encouraged to
“think outside of the box,” they commonly find
themselves surrounded by corporate Styrofoam
peanuts. Unfortunately—and dismayingly—we,
the human race, still know very little about our
own creativity. But authors Herb Meyers and
Richard Gerstman have decided to change
that. In Creativity: Unconventional Wisdom
from 20 Accomplished Minds, the founders of
Interbrand interviewed 20 highly creative and
successful individuals from compellingly diverse
backgrounds, such as author Erica Jong, designer
Milton Glaser, film director Spike Lee, and cofounder of Apple Computer Steve Wozniak.
Neil Taylor, a former namer, counters: “Naming
is in fact one of the hardest…jobs you’ll ever
do.” But his book makes the job a little clearer,
if not easier—simultaneously championing and
demystifying the naming process.
Brandjam: Humanizing brands
through emotional design
By Marc Gobé
What jazz is to music, “brandjamming” is to
branding. The author argues that design should
be a collaborative process involving not just a
design team, but also the client and consumers—
as well as the support of top management.
Intuitive and participative, brandjamming taps
into the subconscious to make an emotional
connection. Any brand can be jazzed up, even
the most iconic. Though it sounds touchy-feely,
brandjamming is a refreshing concept that leads
to tangible results, for it takes into consideration
that while brands develop ideas, it’s people who
attach meaning to them. It’s just a shame that for
a book with many examples of enviable design,
none of the illustrations appear in color.