BrandSimple: How the Best Brands Keep it Simple and Succeed, Allen P. Adamson

"Excellent book about brands and branding"


Summary
BrandSimple is an excellent book about brands and the branding process. The book clearly defines the meaning of brand, branding, brand idea, brand strategy, and brand signals.
It is not the easiest book to read, but it remains very funny thanks to the concrete examples, which are presented all along the book.

Model / Concepts

The book presents in deep details the following concepts:

1. Understand that brand (associations/feelings) and branding (process) are different concepts.
2. Establish a differentiated meaning for your brand that the consumers you want to reach care about.
3. Know exactly who you want to talk to.
4. To find a different and relevant brand idea, look for the obvious.
5. Make sure your brand idea aligns with your business strategy.
6. Capture the essence of your brand idea in a brand driver-a simple statement of what your brand stands for.
7. Draw a map of the customer's journey with your brand.
8. Pick your battles: Invest in customer interactions with the greatest potential to drive consumer perception.
9. Remember, only the paranoid survive and don’t lose the center.
10. Remember that brand building is a marathon event.

Impact
The impact is important both for beginners as well as for experts. The presented concepts are simple to put in place and the given examples are inspiring.

Rating

• rating Amazon – 4.7/5.0 (64 reviews)
• my rating - 4.0/5.0
• fun factor - 4.0/5.0
• simplicity - 3.5/5.0
• impact - 4.0/5.0

The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier

"Excellent book about the power of branding."

Summary

The brand gap is an excellent book about the power of branding. It defines and presents what brand and branding is with simple yet powerful definitions and concepts.
The book points out that a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company. It is therefore not what you say it is, it’s what they say it is.
The brand gap is between strategies, marketing, and creative, between analytical, logical, linear, and intuitive, emotional, between concrete, numerical and spatial, visual.

Model / Concepts
The book presents the five disciplines of branding:

1. Differentiate – Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter?
2. Collaborate – Outsource vs. internally with an integrated marketing team.
3. Innovate – Passion is magic, not logic: Creativity, naming, icons/avatars instead of logos, packaging.
4. Validate – Test distinctiveness, relevance, memorability, extendibility, depth.
5. Cultivate – Every person in the company has to be involved in the branding process. No decision should be made without asking: “Will this help or hurt the brand?”

Impact
If you are a new comer in branding, this book is worth gold: The basic definitions of branding and the clear focus into the branding exercise are key factors to bring a company into the market.
If you are a branding expert, I think that the book still brings you valuable information, especially with the disciplines and the virtuous circle created by them.

Rating

• rating Amazon – 4.5/5.0 (89 reviews)
• my rating - 4.5/5.0
• fun factor – 4.5/5.0
• simplicity - 4.5/5.0
• impact - 4.5/5.0