The Ultimate Book of Business Brands: Insights from the World's Greatest Brands (The Ultimate Series) Book

In a crowded busy world where consumers often allow themselves just seconds to make even major purchase decisions, where if you slip or pause for a second your competitors will be on you, a powerful brand is an increasingly important asset. In fact, in the non-too-distant future it will be impossible to compete, to operate, on any meaningful scale without a brand. They cut through the cacophony of everyday life leaving everybody who comes into contact with them the same clear, simple and unique meaning that acts like a life belt of clarity in the stormy seas of confusion. No wonder branding is a subject of almost endless fascination for authors who are constantly trying to distil the essence of successful brands so as to pass on the secret to others. The usual approach is to select one or two well-known names and subject them to exhaustive interrogation. This highly readable book by two experienced business writers takes a more superficial but an infinitely more entertaining approach. It is not so much The Ultimate Book Of Business Brands as "the book of ultimate business brands". It takes 50 of the world's best know brands, the usual suspects starting at American Express and concluding with Yamaha, and relates a brief homily or anecdote about what makes them so successful. Apple and Sony both made the major error of failing to licence superior technology (the elegant Apple operating system and the Betamax VCR) but daringly created new markets. Coca Cola understood the power of advertising right from its inception in 1886. Mars has an obsession with quality, as does management consultancy McKinsey, and so on. Each little case study contributes its own grain of truth emphasising different approaches and different aspects of creating a powerful brand. Inevitably, being so brief, (some are only three pages long) the anecdotes are sometimes superficial and tend to rehash well-known business stories. So this isn't for brand experts. But for anyone else who wants to learn the key lessons of the world's great brands in an easily digestible form, this book would be hard to beat. --Alex BenadyRead More