brandknewmag.com
42
The Long Tail
Overpromise and Overdeliver:
The Secrets of Unshakable
Customer Loyalty
While the 20th century was dominated by hit
products, the 21st century will be dominated by
niche products, according to Chris Anderson’s
groundbreaking explanation of web-based
purchasing habits. As useful as this book is, you
can get the gist of it from his original article in
Wired.
Best quote: “As demand shifts towards the niches,
the economics of providing them improve further,
and so on, creating a positive feedback loop that
will transform entire industries-and the culture-for
decades to come.”
Edited by Rick Barrera
By Chris Anderson
Zag: The #1 Strategy of HighPerformance Brands
Branding for Nonprofits:
Developing identity with
integrity
By DK Holland
Targeted at nonprofits, this book is for any
organization that believes it’s above corporate
shilling. Holland leads us softly with facts and
logic until we arrive at the realization that
everything really does have a brand (politicians,
religions, museums). The good news is that a
clear and consistent brand identity can aid an
organization in growing brand awareness; the
question is how to arrive at that clear identity.
Practical and process-oriented, the author walks
us through the design brief (tailored to nonprofit
concerns), exploring design options, launch, and
implementation. Non-threatening, easy to read.
“When everybody zigs, zag,” says Marty Neumeier
in this fresh view of brand strategy. ZAG follows
the ultra-clear “whiteboard overview” style of the
author’s first book, THE BRAND GAP but drills
,
deeper into the question of how brands can
harness the power of differentiation. The author
argues that in an extremely cluttered marketplace,
traditional differentiation is no longer enough-today companies need “radical differentiation”
to create lasting value for their shareholders and
customers.
By Marty Neumeier
Emotional Branding: The
New Paradigm for Connecting
Brands to People
Why Johnny Can’t Brand
Not groundbreaking, but if you’re still trying to
get your head around “what is a brand and why
should I care,” this book is as readable as any
we’ve seen this year. After drawing the reader in
with what branding is not, the authors focus on
defining, identifying and instructing the reader in
devising a dominant selling idea (DSI—what used
to be called USP). Short illustrative examples from
current popular brands quickly make the point
and move on to more enlightenment. The book
has teeth; the authors are not afraid to stake out
a position (focus groups blow, the AFLAC duck is
a quack), but they have a tendency to get overexcited with their own outrage.
Emotional Branding is the best selling
revolutionary business book that has created
a movement in branding circles by shifting
the focus from products to people. The “10
Commandments of Emotional Branding” have
become a new benchmark for marketing and
creative professionals, emotional branding has
become a coined term by many top industry
experts to express the new dynamic that exists
now between brands and people.
By Marc Gobe
By Bill Schley &
Carl Nichols, Jr.
Branding Unbound
Storytelling: Branding in
Practice
Leave no channel untapped for reaching
consumers. Mobile marketing, ring tones,
electronic signs, Wi-Fi on the grocery cart, RFID
and countless other innovations allow brand
owners to better research (data mining), better
reach (targeting, advertising, distribution) and
better delight their markets. The possibilities are
endless but the old rules still apply: all of the
technology is useless if the brand itself is not
worth communicating.
By Klaus Fog, Christian
Budtz, Baris Yakaboylu
By Rick Mathieson
An engaging and straightforward articulation of
basic principles that we know about customer
satisfaction but don’t deliver. Starting with a
basic explanation of what is a brand promise,
Barrera demonstrates how companies like
Toyota, Commerce Bancorp, Bellagio, and
Best Buy define this promise and then deliver it.
There’s a reason that Hummer, Disney, Apple
have such strong customer loyalty, and it doesn’t
have to come down to sheer luck or size. It merely
requires brand owners to understand their brand
and their audience.
As a concept, storytelling has won a decisive
foothold in the debate on how brands of the
future will be shaped. Yet, companies are still
confused as to how and why storytelling can
make a difference to their business. What is the
point of telling stories anyway? What makes a
good story? And how do you go about telling it so
that it supports the company brand? This book is
written for practitioners by practitioners. Through
real life examples, simple guidelines and practical
tools, the book aims to inspire companies to use
storytelling as a means of building their brand internally as well as externally.