Brand Babble: Sense and Nonsense About Branding

Branding is a key consideration in any marketing or communications strategy, however, it has been subject to colossal overuse, misuse, and abuse. This text identifies key misconceptions in the field and shows professionals how to recognize them, avoid them, and replace them with strategic and tactical insight for marketing and management. The book explodes the myths and misconceptions that have developed as branding has become a hotter and more lucrative area for consultants.

Table of Contents:
1. What is a Brand? 2. Who Owns the Brand? 3. Separating Hula Hoops from Viable Brands. 4. Dogs, Pigeons, Focus Groups, and Other Exotic Brand Research Techniques. 5. Mental Models, S-Curves, and Multi-tasking. 6. Reification, Abstractionism, Tribal Dances and Other Mumbo-Jumbo about Brands and Branding. 7. Avoiding the Mental Model Minefields. 8. Magic Words, Mystic Signs, an Other Incomprehensible Incantations. 9. Going Global. 10. Birth Pains and Stretch Marks. 11. Media Planning and Buying- An Arcane Science? 12. Why Branding Doesn?t Take a Ton of Media Spending. 13. Brand Tracking in the Himalayas: Nice to Know, But Not Very Useful as a Brand Measure. 14. Searching for Brand Equity in All the Right Places. 15. Future Babble. Index.

Review :
Another great book by Don & Heidi Schultz, which cuts through the 'brand babble' and gets straight to the point. Interesting, insightful and full of useful analogies. A goldmine of helpful information and a must for all marketers bookshelves. Brand Babble is another Don Schultz straight-talking, no-nonsense piece that brilliantly cuts through advertising hype to reveal the common sense of branding. It's full of great examples and solid business propositions. It will ruffle a few feathers as it logically demonstrates that brands must have a meaningful value proposition. If you want to understand brand building, you have to read this book. Don and Heidi have done a masterful job of cutting through all the clutter and noise to give us a thoughtful, pragmatic and user-friendly look at the branding world as it exists today and--more importantly--how it should look tomorrow. Don and Heidi have done it again. Here, they deploy all of their worldly wisdom and communication skills in making branding accessible. Practitioners and students will be grateful for their robust approach to a subject that needs to be understood by everyone in business. Finally, a book that points out all of the gibberish being spouted about branding. The Schultzes are candid and insightful, but also entertaining, in clearing the air on this topic. Anyone involved in brand-building should read their book now--before investing another nickel on anything else about branding.