THE BRAND GAP is the first book to present a unified theory of brand-building. Whereas most books on branding are weighted toward either a strategic or creative approach, this book shows how both ways of thinking can unite to produce a “charismatic brand”—a brand that customers feel is essential to their lives. In an entertaining two-hour read you’ll learn:
• the new definition of brand
• the five essential disciplines of brand-building
• how branding is changing the dynamics of competition
• the three most powerful questions to ask about any brand
• why collaboration is the key to brand-building
• how design determines a customer’s experience
• how to test brand concepts quickly and cheaply
• the importance of managing brands from the inside
• 220-word brand glossary
From the back cover:
Not since McLuhan’s THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE has a book compressed so many ideas into so few pages. Using the visual language of the boardroom, Neumeier presents the first unified theory of branding—a set of five disciplines to help companies bridge the gap between brand strategy and customer experience. Those with a grasp of branding will be inspired by the new perspectives they find here, and those who would like to understand it better will suddenly “get it.” This deceptively simple book offers everyone in the company access to “the most powerful business tool since the spreadsheet.”
Author(s): Marty Neumeier
Edition: 2
Publisher: Pearson Education
Year: 2006
Language: English
Tags: business;marketing;design;branding
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Contents
Introduction
- What a Brand Isn’t
- Why is Brand Suddenly Hot?
- In Verisign We Trust
- What’s Your Brand Worth?
- Brand Happens
- The Brand Gap
- Introducing the Charismatic Brand
Discipline 1: Differentiate
- Three Little Questions
- It’s Different—I Like it
- The Evolution of Marketing
- Globalism vs. TriBalism
- Focus, Focus, Focus
- Are You Growing or Harvesting Your Brand?
Discipline 2. Collaborate
- It Takes a Village to Build a Brand
- The New Collaboratives
- Hooray for Hollywood
- The Power of Prototypes
Discipline 3. Innovate
- Where the Rubber Meets the Road
- When Everybody Zigs, Zag
- Brand or Bland?
- Those Crazy New Names
- Icons and Avatars
- It’s All Packaging
- Does Our Website Look Fat in this Dress?
Discipline 4. Validate
- The New Communication Model
- People Are Different
- Test Is Not a Four-Letter Word
- The Myth of Focus Groups
- How to Avoid Getting Skewed
- The Swap Test
- The Concept Test
- The Field Test
- What are We Looking For?
Discipline 5. Cultivate
- The Living Brand
- Every Day You Write the Book
- The Brand as a Compass
- Protecting the Brand
- Where Are All the CBOs?
- The Virtuous Circle
Take-Home Lessons
Brand Glossary
Recommended Reading
Acknowledgments
Index
About The Author