Branding Only Works on Cattle: The New Way to Get Known (And Drive Your Competitors Crazy)

by Jonathan Salem Baskin

Overview

In this essential guide to understanding how branding is evolving, learn how companies affect behavior via marketing communications, distribution strategies, and customer service.

Most people don't know it yet, but branding is dead.

Sure, we need to know about the stuff we want to buy, but the billions of dollars spent on logos, sponsorships, and jingles have little, if anything, to do with actual consumer behavior. For example:

• Dinosaur-headed execs in Microsoft ads didn't help sell software.
• Citibank's artsy "live richly" billboards didn't prompt a single new account.
• United Airlines' animated TV commercials didn't fill more seats on airplanes.

As branding guru Jonathan Baskin reveals, modern consumers are harder to find, more difficult to convince, and near-impossible to retain. They make decisions based on experience—so what matters isn't how creative, cool, or memorable the advertising is, but how companies can directly target consumer behavior.

Pretty pictures and funny taglines should be an afterthought: brands must target what consumers actually do. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446542258
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/22/2008
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	431 KB

About the Author

Jonathan Salem Baskin is the principal of Baskin Associates. He has led some of the most successful marketing campaigns in recent history, working with Nissan, Blockbuster, Apple, and GE. He speaks extensively on marketing panels and runs the highly popular marketing blog Dim Bulb.

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Challenging Ptolemy's Imagination 1

1. Your Branding Is Useless 10

2. Traces in a Cloud Chamber 33

3. The New Nike 56

4. The Rise of the Anti-Brand 79

5. The Myth of the Consumer/Producer 104

6. The Outsourcing of Consent 127

7. Games as Purpose, Not Distraction 151

8. It Takes a Company 172

9. The Buzz in Buzz Marketing 195

10. The Emperor's New Clothes 219

Notes 243

Bibliography 249

Index 253

Editorial Reviews

"Baskin's thesis is compelling... worthy and brave.... Baskin has at least started a debate." (Economist.com, August 7th 2009)

"Baskin's book certainly has something valid to say... worth picking up.... I would also recommend it for branding specialists." (TheBookBag.com, April 16th 2009)

"... a lively, chatty easy-to-read book.... It's well worth a look." (Research Magazine, April 2009)

"His observations generally are excellent, and his chapters on search, social media and the Internet in general are near brilliant." (BNET.com, March 24th 2009)

"... provides an interesting read." (Brandchannel.com, February 16th 2009)

From the Publisher