53 Best Books on Branding

Seven proven elements of powerful stories that will dramatically improve the way you connect with your customers and drastically grow your business.

Donald Miller’s StoryBrand process is a proven solution to the struggle business leaders face when talking about their businesses. This revolutionary method for connecting with customers provides listeners with the ultimate competitive advantage, revealing the secret for helping their customers understand the compelling benefits of using their products, ideas, or services. Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching listeners the seven universal story points all humans respond to, the real reason customers make purchases, how to simplify a brand message so people understand it, and how to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media.

Whether you are the marketing director of a multibillion-dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, Building a StoryBrand will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.

Quotes from Building A Story;

“Story is atomic. It is perpetual energy and can power a city. Story is the one thing that can hold a human being’s attention for hours.”

“Simply turning our focus to the customer and offering them a heroic role in a meaningful story is enough to radically change the way we talk about, and even do, business.” 

“People will always choose a story that helps them survive and thrive.” 

“Every human being is already speaking the language of story, so when you begin using the SB7 framework, you’ll finally be speaking their language.”

If your organization wants to better understand customer experience and how it contributes to brand value, The Physics of Brand is the place to start. This book offers a practical framework that shows how brands interact with people in time and space — to create value for people, brand owners, and society.

The authors leave a smile in your mind as they weave neuroscience, micro and macroeconomics and systems thinking into a narrative equally rewarding for general managers, marketers and finance leaders. If you think branding is limited to communication, sales conversions, or logo design, this book will expand your worldview. If you want a more precise method to value brands, this book will light your hair on fire. 

Through the Time Model, you’ll learn why first moments are vital in creating long term brand memories, and you’ll find out how to design moments that lead to emotional engagement. You will also learn why time spent with a brand is an important and under-appreciated indicator of brand energy. 

The Space Model shows how brands operate in the real world of Brand Owners, Brand Handlers, Communities and People. The Jacob’s Ladder Model shows how brand signals ladder-up to brand value. These three models provide a new framework to assess the value of brands and provide the tools to design superior customer experiences.

The chapters ground the ideas in reality through case studies that include KIND, Smartwool, Patagonia and The Honest Company, with fun detours such as Snoop Dog and Willy Nelson sharing a bucket of KFC in an Amsterdam parking lot. The writing is as friendly as the ideas are elevated. Each chapter includes clear summaries, mind bending thought experiments and pleasant diversions.

This book is for leaders who want to improve the customer experience in a measurable way. The Physics of Brand will help you arrive at a rewarding destination. The book presents a brand-new way of thinking.

How do you grow a truly sustainable business in the hyper-competitive 21st century? By using the practical, psychology-based strategies in this book to dive into the mind of your customer and enhance your business customer experience by creating “buying loops” that keep your customers coming back for more.

The Customer Loyalty Loop includes proven, science-backed secrets for building legions of loyal customers who will become evangelists for your business, buy from you repeatedly, and actually enjoy doing business with you.

You will learn a wide variety of simple but powerfully effective strategies, such as:

• How to stop using gimmicks and trick promotions to encourage repeat business, and what to do instead that will keep your customers coming back for more.
• How to use the “Butler Secret” to achieve results superior to any marketing campaign or promotion you’ll ever dream up.
• Why providing the best customer service isn?t enough anymore, and what you must do instead if you want your business to keep growing in the 21st century.
• The “Bentley Strategy” that will immediately and dramatically increase customer loyalty to your business.
• And many more proven tactics and strategies.

Quotes from The Customer Loyalty Loop: The Science Behind Creating Great Experiences and Lasting Impressions;

“Start thinking about every part of doing business with your company as an experience for the customer.”

“Why have people buy from you once when you can influence them and create an environment where customers want to buy again, and again, and again?”

“Businesses go to great lengths to create the right customer experience, but what they should be doing is creating the right customer memory.”

“Succeeding at creating a memorable customer experience requires careful and meticulous attention paid to how each customer memory is created.”

“How things are presented, the stories created and the metaphors used all influence perception, subsequent memories and, more important, decision making.”

Prestige brand experts JP Kuehlwein and Wolfgang Schaefer uncover the formula for what drives the success of iconic brands, offering a behind-the-scenes look into not just the practical marketing of brands, but how consumers respond to them psychologically and emotionally.

With insights from interviews with 50 premium brand experts and over 100 case studies from companies including Apple, Red Bull, Cirque du Soleil, and Hermès, Rethinking Prestige Branding will fascinate the marketing professional just as much as those who are simply curious about how premium brands tick.

Quotes from Rethinking Prestige Branding: Secrets of the Ueber-Brands;

“Ueber-Brands are in the business of creating desirability, and they do this by surrounding themselves with an air of mystery.”

“If your brand manages to translate its mission and its history into a myth, it’s on its best way to reach the ultimate status, becoming a true cultural icon beyond any price consideration.”

“The higher you rise, the harder you fall. That’s particularly true for Ueber-Brands, and the worst is, it doesn’t even take much.”

“Ueber-Brands celebrate their iconic products as true heroes, marketing them full force without ever overselling or undermining them.”

Journalist Murray Carpenter has been under the influence of a drug for nearly three decades. And he’s in good company, because chances are you’re hooked, too. Humans have used caffeine for thousands of years. A bitter white powder in its most essential form, a tablespoon of it would kill even the most habituated user. This addictive, largely unregulated substance is everywhere—in places you’d expect (like coffee and chocolate) and places you wouldn’t (like chewing gum and fruit juice), and Carpenter reveals its impact on soldiers, athletes, and even children. It can make you stronger, faster, and more alert, but it’s not perfect, and its role in health concerns like obesity and anxiety will surprise you.

Making stops at the coffee farms of central Guatemala, a synthetic caffeine factory in China, and an energy shot bottler in New Jersey, among numerous other locales around the globe, Caffeinated exposes the high-stakes but murky world of caffeine, drawing on cutting-edge science and larger-than-life characters to offer an unprecedented understanding of America’s favorite drug.

Quotes from Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts, and Hooks Us;

“Caffeine is so attractive that American bottlers blend more than ten million pounds of the addictive powder into their soft drinks every year.”

“Consistently and conspicuously absent from most ads for caffeine products is any mention of the ingredient that gives them their appeal.”

“All of caffeine’s effects – from athletic and cognitive boosts to sleepiness and anxiety – vary, depending on how quickly we process the drug.”

“A large dose of caffeine will give you a good kick and often a sense of euphoria. But reinforcement is often much more subtle, occurring below the level of consciousness.”

Too many new companies and products have names that look like the results of a drunken Scrabble game (Xobni, Svbtle, Doostang). In this entertaining and engaging book, ace-naming consultant Alexandra Watkins explains how anyone–even noncreative types–can create memorable and effective brand names. No degree in linguistics required.

The heart of the book is Watkins’s proven SMILE and SCRATCH Test. A great name makes you SMILE because it is Suggestive–evokes something about your brand; is Memorable–makes an association with the familiar; uses Imagery–aids memory through evocative visuals; has Legs–lends itself to a theme for extended mileage; and is Emotional–moves people. 

A bad name, on the other hand, makes you SCRATCH your head because it is Spelling challenged–looks like a typo; is a Copycat–similar to competitors’ names; is Restrictive–limits future growth; is Annoying–seems forced and frustrates customers; is Tame–feels flat, merely descriptive, and uninspired; suffers from the Curse of Knowledge–speaks only to insiders; and is Hard to pronounce–confuses and distances customers.

This 50 percent-new second edition has double the number of brainstorming tools and techniques, even more secrets and strategies to nab an available domain name, a brand-new chapter on how companies are using creative names around the office to add personality to everything from cafeterias to conference rooms, and much more.

Quotes from Hello My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick;

“Whether people see it on your storefront, read it on your badge at a trade show or see it on their caller ID, your brand name makes a critical first impression.”

“Investing in a well-planned identity system from the start is important to the long-term success of your brand.”

“Spelling-challenged names will forever frustrate your customers, embarrass your employees, and annoy journalists, bloggers and proofreaders.”

“Don’t get locked into a name that you may outgrow down the road. Plan ahead and choose a name that will be a wide enough umbrella to cover your future…offerings.”

Discover proven strategies for building powerful, world-class brands in this 800CEOREAD bestseller    It’s tempting to believe that brands like Apple, Nike, and Zappos achieved their iconic statuses because of serendipity, an unattainable magic formula, or even the genius of a single visionary leader. However, these companies all adopted specific approaches and principles that transformed their ordinary brands into industry leaders. In other words, great brands can be built–and Denise Lee Yohn knows exactly how to do it. Delivering a fresh perspective, Yohn’s What Great Brands Do teaches an innovative brand-as-business strategy that enhances brand identity while boosting profit margins, improving company culture, and creating stronger stakeholder relationships. Drawing from twenty-five years of consulting work with such top brands as Frito-Lay, Sony, Nautica, and Burger King, Yohn explains key principles of her brand-as-business strategy.

• Reveals the seven key principles that the world’s best brands consistently implement
• Presents case studies that explore the brand building successes and failures of companies of all sizes including GE, IKEA, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and other remarkable brands
• Provides tools and strategies that organizations can start using right away

Filled with targeted guidance for CEOs, COOs, entrepreneurs, and other organization leaders, and named as one of Inc. Magazine‘s Top Marketing Books of 2014, What Great Brands Do is an essential blueprint for launching any brand to meteoric heights.

Quotes from What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best From the Rest;

“Great brands connect their internal culture to larger culture movements to establish authentic relevance and deeper emotional connection.”

“Managers of great brands view every consumer contact with the brand as an occasion that might either enhance the brand’s value or undermine it.”

“Your brand is not your image; your brand is what you do. Brands are about action, not advertising.”

“When you can’t see any daylight between what you believe, what you practice, what you offer and what you say about yourself, you are doing what great brands do.”

7 Secrets of Persuasion is the first book to take the latest scientific insights about the mind and apply them to the art of persuasion. It directly translates the revolution in neuroscience that has occurred over the last 40 years into practical new techniques for effective persuasion.

Whether your goal is to persuade one person—a husband, child, or boss—or the millions who might purchase an Apple Watch or a Budweiser, 7 Secrets of Persuasion will show you how to:

• Unearth the motivation that actually changes a behavior like smoking, voting, or buying, even though people don’t know why they do what they do.
• Tap into the mental process that gives religious symbols, political symbols, and commercial logos their power.
• Make a promise that is delayed, uncertain, and rational more compelling by making it immediate, certain, and emotional.
• Transform your candidate, service, or product into the one people want by utilizing what psychologists call the “fundamental attribution error.”

Quotes from 7 Secrets of Persuasion: Leading-Edge Neuromarketing Techniques to Influence Anyone;

“Because our automatic, nonconscious mental system directs us to do what we enjoy, we pay a little more attention to messages we enjoy.”

“Choosing carrots instead of a candy bar can contribute to weight loss. But weight loss is a long way off. Right now, a candy bar will taste better than carrots.”

“A persuasion attempt becomes more powerful when we focus on feeling and transform a reward that is delayed, uncertain and rational into one which is immediate, certain and emotional.”

“Show people that your recommended option is the best path to what they already desire.”

What Does it Take to Get Ahead Now―And Stay There?

High performance has always required shrewd strategy and superb execution. These factors remain critical, especially given today’s unprecedented business climate. But Rich Karlgaard―Forbes publisher, entrepreneur, investor, and board director―takes a surprising turn and argues that there is now a third element that’s required for competitive advantage. It fosters innovation, it accelerates strategy and execution, and it cannot be copied or bought. It is found in a perhaps surprising place―your company’s values.

Karlgaard examined a variety of enduring companies and found that they have one thing in common; all have leveraged their deepest values alongside strategy and execution, allowing them to fuel growth as well as weather hard times. Karlgaard shares these stories and identifies the five key variables that make up every organization’s “soft edge”:

• Trust: Northwestern Mutual has built a $25 million dollar revenue juggernaut on trust, the foundation of lasting success. Learn how to create an environment that engenders trust and propels high performance.
• Smarts: In most technical fields your formal education quickly becomes out of date. How do you keep up? Learn how the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University women’s basketball team, and others stay on top by relentlessly pursuing an advantage through smarts.
• Teamwork: Since collaboration and innovation are a must in the global economy, effective teamwork is vital. Learn how global giant FedEx stays focused and how nimble Nest Labs relies on lean teams with cognitive diversity.
• Taste: Clever product design and integration are proxies for intelligence because they make customers feel smart. But taste goes further into deep emotional engagement. Specialized Bicycles calls it “the elusive spot between data truth and human truth.” How can you consistently make products or services that trigger these emotional touch points?
• Story: Companies that achieve lasting success have an enduring and emotionally appealing story. What’s your company’s story? How do you tell it your way? Gain the ability to create a powerful narrative in a world where outsiders often exercise the louder voice.

Quotes from The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success;

“The battle for money and attention boiling inside most companies and among most managers is that between the hard and soft edges.”

“Dignity, respect, pride – and the sense of trust those feelings engender – create real-world returns and measurable increases in productivity.”

“Smarts isn’t about looking for the next star student with a 4.0 or having an IQ that can boil water. Instead, it’s about the importance of hard work…perseverance and resilience.”

“To…left-brained business titans, the soft edge looks like a realm of artists, idealists, hippies, poets, shrinks and do-gooders.”

It’s a new era of business and consumerism―and you play a role in defining it

Today’s biggest trends―the mobile web, social media, real-time―have produced a new consumer landscape. The End of Business As Usual explores this complex information revolution, how it has changed the future of business, media, and culture, and what you can do about it.

Quotes from The End of Business as Usual;

“News no longer breaks, it tweets – demonstrating the efficiency, momentum and influence of the human network.”

“Whether consumers are online or offline, technology is evolving faster than the majority of businesses or consumers can adapt or assimilate.”

“You can’t be customer-centric if you don’t know who your customers are and what it is they value.”

“Controlling the moment is so last decade. It’s now up to the host – or in the world of business, the brand, leader or champion – to create moments that are nothing short of engaging.”

“The medium is no longer just the message. Now, the medium is the platform, and people now represent both the medium and the message.”

“The essence of evolution and the ability to outpace digital Darwinism lie in the ability to embrace change.”

“In social media, we are the stars of our own reality show and our audience, like any audience, must be cultivated. As such, your ‘15 minutes’ are yours to define.”

People want to buy from, work for, and partner with companies that matter.

So how do you build a company that matters?

Companies and people that matter have successfully become the obvious choice in the hearts and minds of their customers, their employees, and their communities. They elevate themselves by consistently finding ways to solve the most pressing needs their markets face. The result? They create more value year after year and build a sustainable, differentiated organization.

In Matter, Peter Sheahan and Julie Williamson show you how to identify the place where you can create the most value—your edge of disruption—at the intersection of old and new, where your existing profits, reach, and reputation enable you to create the markets of the future. This is the place where the most important problems are solved and where the fewest people can solve them. Your edge of disruption is where your opportunity to matter is found.

Matter uses extensive case studies of real companies that have successfully become the obvious choice in their markets—from high-profile corporations like Adobe and Burberry to lesser-known brands like Littlefield and BlueShore Financial. Their stories define innovative and impactful approaches to business that you can use to influence and partner with the right customers and clients to win in our radically changing world. Through their journeys, you will find the inspiration and courage to lean in to complexity and solve the higher value problems that matter most.

Don’t just read this book—use it to identify and act on opportunities to create the most value and accelerate your own journey to becoming a person and a company that matters.

Quotes from Matter: Move Beyond the Competition, Create More Value, and Become the Obvious Choice;

“The purpose of life…is to be useful, to be honorable. It is to be compassionate. It is to matter, to have it make some difference that you have lived.” (Leo Rosten)

“To be a company that matters, you need to judge yourself by your impact, not your intentions.”

“Companies that transform into the obvious choice are also able to convert insights about what they see in their markets into action for their brands.”

“Elevated relationships mean you are influencing as high as possible in the organization …cultivating broad relationships and exerting influence on the market.”

“Elevating your impact means confronting your edge of disruption head-on and leaning into the complexity you find there.”

The American economy is profoundly dependent on the success of its retailers and the strength of its consumer spending. Yet, how do leading retailers create value for their customers?

To a large extent this has been accomplished by streamlining operations and a decades-long focus on cost cutting and price competitiveness. Today, retailers realize that they need to discover new ways to differentiate themselves and attract consumer spending. The American Retail Value Proposition provides the framework for building that differentiation and establishing a competitive advantage that goes beyond price discounting. This framework is based on more than a decade of research, including hundreds of hours of interviews with executives from the world’s leading retailers, including Starbucks, Walmart, Apple, Amazon, and Lowe’s. Whether you are an aspiring merchant or an industry veteran, this book’s strategic framework will help you build a solid foundation for your business in today’s ever-evolving retail marketplace.

Quotes from The American Retail Value Proposition: Crafting Unique Experiences at Compelling Prices;

“Retail is a tough business. There is no magic bullet or simple recipe for success.”

“Great retailers are able to design the shopping environment, manage product selection and engage customers…at a cost well below the price that they are willing to pay.”

“Design the entrance to a store as the gateway to the consumer experience.”

“Making the right product selection decisions is the difference between success and failure.”

“Starbucks doesn’t have a lockdown patent on the environment, it doesn’t have a lockdown patent on the experience, and it doesn’t have a lockdown patent on the bean or the roast. All of those things can be duplicated. So what it comes down to is dominance of real estate.”

“Retailers are in the business of selling products and should use floor space to optimize the display of those products.”

Conventional wisdom holds that the Internet makes the world flat and reduces friction by erasing the impact of the physical world on our buying habits.

But Wharton professor and marketing expert David R. Bell argues that the way we use the Internet is still largely shaped by the physical world we inhabit.

Anyone can go online and buy a pair of jeans—but the likelihood that we will do so depends to a significant degree on where we live. The presence of stores nearby, trendy and friendly neighbors, and local sales taxes, among other factors, play a critical role in our decision making when it comes to buying online. Our willingness to search for and consume information also depends on where we live and whom we live next to.

In Location Is (Still) Everything, Bell offers a fascinating, in-depth look at online commerce and retailing through his years of research, investing, and advising experience. His unique GRAVITY framework is a powerful and practical tool that uses fundamental human behaviors and location-based conditions to explain how the real and virtual worlds intersect — and what Internet sellers must do in order to succeed. Entrepreneurs, managers, students, and investors will all benefit from understanding how and why we use the Internet to search, shop, and sell.

Quotes from Location Is (Still) Everything: The Surprising Influence of the Real World on How We Search, Shop, and Sell in the Virtual One;

“Allow your customers to access your business in both real-world and virtual-world contexts in one seamless and natural experience.”

“Virtual-world sellers of products and content have very predictable demand patterns – once you understand where the target customers are.”

“As the topography of real-world/virtual-world interaction evolves, it’s natural that sellers who began life in one world need to acquire presence in the other.”

“The size and demographics of a city have a major influence on whether the Internet is used mainly by those who live there as a tool for searching or as a tool for shopping.”

“The way we use the Internet – for searching, shopping and selling – is intimately and systematically connected to our physical circumstances.”

Innovation principles to bring about meaningful and sustainable growth in your organization.

Using a list of more than 2,000 successful innovations, including Cirque du Soleil, early IBM mainframes, the Ford Model-T, and many more, the authors applied a proprietary algorithm and determined ten meaningful groupings―the Ten Types of Innovation―that provided insight into innovation. The Ten Types of Innovation explores these insights to diagnose patterns of innovation within industries, to identify innovation opportunities, and to evaluate how firms are performing against competitors. The framework has proven to be one of the most enduring and useful ways to start thinking about transformation.

• Details how you can use these innovation principles to bring about meaningful―and sustainable―growth within your organization
• Author Larry Keeley is a world renowned speaker, innovation consultant, and president and co-founder of Doblin, the innovation practice of Monitor Group; BusinessWeek named Keeley one of seven Innovation Gurus who are changing the field

The Ten Types of Innovation concept has influenced thousands of executives and companies around the world since its discovery in 1998. The Ten Types of Innovation is the first book explaining how to implement it.

Quotes from Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs;

“Most organizations tend to pursue many small, incremental innovation initiatives and not enough breakthrough initiatives.”

“In most industries the dominant profit model often goes unquestioned for decades.”

“Anyone can innovate and any company can build the approaches, management structures, resources and tools necessary to help people to become better innovators.”

“For the very first time in history, we are in a position to tackle tough problems with groundbreaking tools and techniques.”

“Innovation always feels obvious in retrospect. Yet the journey from idea to implementation is anything but; it is fraught with doubt and danger.”

“Too often we draw the conclusion that innovation success depends on supremely talented individuals. Actual evidence points elsewhere.”

While the first two editions of How Cool Brands Stay Hot focused exclusively on Generation Y (Millennials), this fully revised third edition looks at both Generations Y and Z.  Using new market research to map and quantify the spending power of Generation Z, branding experts  Joeri Van den Bergh and Mattias Behrer provide hard evidence on the impact of this generation and suggest ways to market effectively to them.
 
The book reveals how Millennials think, feel, and behave, and discusses how recent developments such as the recession, mobile marketing and purchasing, and the adaptation and evolution of social media, have impacted Generation Y.  All the chapters offer new case studies and interviews, from companies such as H&M, Forever 21, and Converse, as well as updated facts, figures, and research. 

Quotes from How Cool Brands Stay Hot: Branding to Generations Y and Z;

“The second you tell a millennial you are cool, you can be very sure that, well, you are not.”

“The ‘cool’ factor can make or break your brand as consumers increasingly use brands to define themselves.”

Only gen Y brands that don’t imitate or fake their personality and stay true to their DNA will earn a sustainable place in the hearts of this savvy generation.”

“Fifty years after the ‘Mad Men’ era, marketers are still fond of using the nostalgic values of their brands and products to appeal to gen Y’s desire for authenticity.”

“The biggest challenge of youth marketers is to keep their products and brands funky. The trick is to keep your marketing campaigns up-to-date without losing your brand’s authenticity.”

One of the most provocative entrepreneurs of our time, who started Ecko Unltd out of his parents’ garage and turned it into a media empire, Marc Ecko reveals his formula for building an authentic brand or business.

As instructive as it is innovative, Unlabel will empower you to channel your creativity, find the courage to defy convention, and summon the confidence to act and compete in any environment.

This visual blueprint will teach you how to grow both creatively and commercially by testing your personal brand against the principles of the Authenticity Formula.

Marc Ecko shares the bruising mistakes and remarkable triumphs that reveal the truth behind his success, growing from a misfit kid airbrushing T-shirts in his parents’ garage to the bold creator of two hugely successful branded platforms—Ecko Unltd. and Complex Media. As Ecko explains, it’s not enough to simply merge your inner artist with business savvy, you must understand the anatomy of a brand, starting with its authentic spine.

With Unlabel, you will learn how to discover your own voice by overcoming fear and taking action, what it means to deliver on your promises, why failure is essential, how to understand how your product or service makes people feel, and how to recognize if your nostalgia for the past is hampering your ability to envision your future.

Unlabel is a bold and honest approach to building an authentic personal brand, growing a bootstrap start-up into a sustainable business.

Quotes from Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out;

“This book is the story of how I unlabeled myself, defying classification so I could grow both creatively and commercially.”

“The success or failures in my story, my company’s story and all of our stories boil down to authenticity.”

“You have only so many minutes in every day – so many ticks on the clock – and every action you perform means, by definition, you’re not performing some other action.”

“Vision for the Future is about having the courage to dream big, [and] having the discipline and the focus to look at what’s in front of your face.”

“Creation can’t be bound by some esoteric code of ethics that ends up limiting your vision or putting constraints on how far you can stretch or grow.”

“Authenticity is equal to your unique voice, multiplied by truthfulness, plus your capacity for change, multiplied by range of emotional impact, raised to the power of imagination.”

The landscape is littered with the corpses of great products and strong companies that died because of crappy marketing.

Why do so many companies fail so miserably? Why do high-priced ad agencies and marketing firms keep spitting out stupid campaigns?

Too many in business have failed to recognize the shift that has happened right under their noses. It’s not so much that people have changed; it’s that the business landscape has changed–dramatically. For the first time in human history, we have no unmet needs. Every problem has a solution, and many companies now find themselves creating solutions that appear to be looking for a problem.

In his provocative and enlightening new book, Visibility Marketing, David Avrin shows what marketing approaches work, which don’t, and why. You will learn how to uncover your true competitive advantages and a process to craft messages and tactics that achieve tangible results.

A remarkably accessible, relatable, thought-provoking reference book, Visibility Marketing speaks directly to business owners, entrepreneurs, marketing managers, and sales professionals.

With wisdom gleaned from hundreds of presentations and workshops and conversations with tens of thousands of company leaders, Visibility Marketing will forever change how businesses and professionals look at the competitive landscape and how they promote themselves.

Quotes from Visibility Marketing: The No-Holds-Barred Truth About What It Takes to Grab Attention, Build Your Brand and Win New Business ;

“Marketing is sharing with your audiences who you are, what you do really well and why they should buy from you, now.”

“Everything is marketing, including everything you say about yourself and everything that others say about you.”

“You are going to have to go after your competitors’ customers if you are going to grow.”

“The historic marketing claims of superior quality, greater reliability, caring service, passionate, committed people and the freshest ingredients are falling on deaf ears.”

“The marketplace has changed, and good, hardworking people are getting crushed. The business failure rate today is staggering and growing each year.”

Swiss Watching is a light-hearted yet revealing journey around Europe’s most individual country. From seeking Heidi and finding the best chocolate to reliving a bloody past and exploring an uncertain future, Swiss Watching proves that there’s more to Switzerland than banks, skis, francs and cheese. One country, four languages, 26 cantons, and 7.5 million people (only 80% of whom are Swiss): there’s nowhere else in Europe like it. Switzerland may be surrounded by land, but it is an island at the center of Europe. Welcome to the landlocked island.

Quotes from Swiss Watching: Inside the Land of Milk & Money;

“Despite being surrounded by bigger, stronger countries, Switzerland has only been conquered once…a feat that is still the source of some pride.”

“The Swiss people are the final decision makers on almost every single policy, whether it affects their own neighborhood or the whole country.”

“The pleasant thing about driving in Switzerland is that everyone seems so polite. Road rage is not a Swiss concept, mainly because rage is so very un-Swiss.”

“Britain may have invented the railway, but it doesn’t know how to run one. That’s a role the Swiss have taken on with relish.”

“Armed neutrality is a very Swiss concept, one that defines both the country itself and its relations with the outside world.”

For his new book, Mario Pricken has thoroughly analyzed more than 300 products, objects and events over their entire lifecycles in order to reveal, for the first time, the patterns that make things extraordinarily valuable. On the basis of his analysis, he has identified 80 parameters that can be found, for example, in the biographies of exceptional cars, watches, luxury foods, designer furniture, artwork and services – such as the elements of uniqueness, scarcity, the effect of time or magnificently orchestrated transfers of ownership. In addition, the book provides a comprehensive catalog of questions to help us generate our own ideas for giving products that special something which transforms them into objects of desire.
“The Essence of Value” is an inspiring book for progressive, creative people involved in product development, marketing, design, events and the arts as well as recommended reading for those who appreciate fine things and want to understand what makes products particularly special and valuable. The book focusses on intuition and understanding, but it also inspires and entertains, offering us an entirely new way of looking at the creation, marketing and purchase of truly desirable products.
This travel guide through the world of valuable products and objects
– reveals, based on examples from the worlds of business, the arts and religion, and with numerous accompanying illustrations, the fundamental parameters that create value and make products “shine”
– can be used as an analytical tool to quickly and easily determine the “value-DNA” of a product
– provides over 300 thought-provoking questions to inspire new ideas on how to imbue products with value
– shows professionals a clear and practical application of the value parameters.

Quotes from The Essense of Value: Secrets of desired products;

“Value and significance…do not arise of their own accord, but first and foremost in relation to the behavior of other people.”

“The observer is the source of everything. Without him there is nothing. He is the cornerstone of perception, the basis of every supposition.” (Neurobiologist and philosopher Humberto Maturana)

“Creation myths provide people, products, companies, objects and even events with an identity, authenticity and an unmistakable provenance and thereby, basically, a value we can gladly identify with.”

“A product’s or object’s market value cannot simply be created – it can only be reflected in people’s willingness to pay the asking price.”

“Genuine value can only come from the most brilliant ideas and honest effort.”

In The New Rules of Retail , industry gurus Robin Lewis and Michael Dart explained how unprecedented consumer power, enabled by technology and globalization, is revolutionizing retail. They warned that survival in these dynamic times called for a business model based on three distinct competencies: preemptive, perpetual distribution; a neurological customer connection; and total control of the value chain. In the years since that book published, many of their predictions have come true. Now, they revisit timeless case studies like Ralph Lauren and Sears, as well as new additions like Trader Joe’s, Lululemon, and Warby Parker, to assess how retailers must continue to evolve in the era of e-commerce, data mining, and tiered distribution. They also identify the five current trends that are currently driving consumer demand, including technology integration and channel consolidation, as exemplified by Jeff Bezos at Amazon. This is a fully revised and updated guide from two proven retail prognosticators.

Quotes from The New Rules of Retail;

“The selling environment…is where the brand must neurologically connect with the consumer, deploying the entire imagery and DNA of the brand.”

“In Wave III, “the consumer is central and literally holds all the cards of commerce.”

“The shifting balance between supply and demand, and how it drives changes in retail distribution models, is fundamental.”

“Retailers and wholesalers that successfully transform their businesses will simply all be brands [and] therefore would more appropriately be defined as brand managers.”

“The traditional definitions of ‘retail’ and ‘wholesale’ will be irrelevant in the future…and no longer meaningful to consumers.”

Rank higher in search results with this guide to SEO and content building supremacy.

Google is not only the number one search engine in the world, it is also the number one website in the world. Only 5 percent of site visitors search past the first page of Google, so if you’re not in those top ten results, you are essentially invisible. Winning the Game of Googleopoly is the ultimate roadmap to Page One Domination. The POD strategy is what gets you on that super-critical first page of Google results by increasing your page views. You’ll learn how to shape your online presence for Search Engine Optimization, effectively speaking Google’s language to become one of the top results returned for relevant queries. This invaluable resource provides a plan that is universal to any business in any industry, and provides expert guidance on tailoring the strategy to best suit your organization. Coverage includes an explanation of the mechanics of a search, and how to tie your website, paid ads, online reputation, social media, content, images, and video into a winning SEO strategy that pushes you to the front of the line.

The Page One Domination strategy incorporates all the ways in which you can beef up your Internet presence and online reputation. This book is a clear, straightforward guide that will knock down the silos of the Internet and teach you exactly how to integrate all aspects of content creation into a synergistic, SEO strategy.

• Understand how search engines return results
• Design an effective, all-encompassing SEO strategy
• Create the content that gets page views and improves rank
• Optimize social media and video as part of an overall SEO plan

The rules of SEO are always changing, and following outdated rules can actually work against you, burying you at the bottom of the pile. This book will spark a paradigm shift in how you think about SEO and gives you the tools you need to craft a strategy tailored to your specific market. To be successful, you need to be on page one of Google, and Winning the Game of Googleopoly can show you how to get there.

Quotes from Win the Game of Googleopoly: Unlocking the Secret Strategy of Search Engines;

“What is the most powerful form of Internet digital marketing? The answer is unequivocally ‘search engine domination,’ specifically through the ‘oracle’ itself, Google.”

“A website’s primary objective in achieving high SEO ranking (and Google page-one dominance) should be to secure as many external links as humanly possible.”

“Only 5 percent of people go past page one of a Google search.”

“Every review should receive a personalized reply, preferably from the owner or general manager of the company.”

“When you acknowledge the reviews and review sites with your own properties, Google is more likely to give them credibility as a result.”

As the former chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, author Michael Hyatt gained insight on the importance of combining compelling products with a meaningful platform. Now, with nearly three hundred thousand followers on Twitter, his large and growing platform serves as the foundation for his own successful writing, speaking, and business coaching practice. In this straightforward how-to, he offers down-to-earth guidance on crafting an effective and meaningful online platform to help readers extend their influence, monetize it, and build a sustainable career.Social media technologies have provided unprecedented opportunities for getting noticed and earning money in an increasingly noisy world. Platform goes behind the scenes into the world of social media success. You’ll discover what bestselling authors, public speakers, entrepreneurs, musicians, and other creatives are doing differently to gain contacts, connections, and followers and win customers in today’s crowded marketplace. With proven strategies, easy-to-replicate formulas, and practical tips, this book makes it easier, less expensive, and more possible than ever to stand out from the crowd and launch a business.

Quotes from Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World;

“If you don’t slam-dunk the first element – the compelling product – you won’t win the game.”

“Social media only [work] well if the communication is personal, authentic and near immediate.”

“The goal of the landing page is to convert interest into action.”

“Nothing in the marketing mix is more important than a strong title.”

“If the customer walks out the door, never to return, the investment is wasted.”

The guide to creating engaging web content and building a loyal following, revised and updated.

Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other platforms are giving everyone a “voice,” including organizations and their customers. So how do you create the stories, videos, and blog posts that cultivate fans, arouse passion for your products or services, and ignite your business? Content Rules equips you for online success as a one-stop source on the art and science of developing content that people care about. This coverage is interwoven with case studies of companies successfully spreading their ideas online―and using them to establish credibility and build a loyal customer base.

• Find an authentic “voice” and craft bold content that will resonate with prospects and buyers and encourage them to share it with others
• Leverage social media and social tools to get your content and ideas distributed as widely as possible
• Understand why you are generating content―getting to the meat of your message in practical, commonsense language, and defining the goals of your content strategy
• Write in a way that powerfully communicates your service, product, or message across various Web mediums
• Boost your online presence and engage with customers and prospects like never before with Content Rules.

In this long-awaited book from the world’s premier brand expert and author of the seminal work Building Strong Brands, David Aaker shows managers how to construct a brand portfolio strategy that will support a company’s business strategy and create relevance, differentiation, energy, leverage, and clarity.

Building on case studies of world-class brands such as Dell, Disney, Microsoft, Sony, Dove, Intel, CitiGroup, and PowerBar, Aaker demonstrates how powerful, cohesive brand strategies have enabled managers to revitalize brands, support business growth, and create discipline in confused, bloated portfolios of master brands, subbrands, endorser brands, cobrands, and brand extensions.

Renowned brand guru Aaker demonstrates that assuring that each brand in the portfolio has a clear role and actively reinforces and supports the other portfolio brands will profoundly affect the firm’s profitability. Brand Portfolio Strategy is required reading not only for brand managers but for all managers with bottom-line responsibility to their shareholders.

A myth-shattering investigation of the true cost of America’s passion for finding a better bargain.

From the shuttered factories of the Rust Belt to the strip malls of the Sun Belt-and almost everywhere in between-America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price. This pervasive yet little- examined obsession with bargains is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time, having fueled an excess of consumerism that blights our land­scapes, escalates personal debt, lowers our standard of living, and even skews of our concept of time.

Spotlighting the peculiar forces that drove Americans away from quality, durability, and craftsmanship and towards quantity, quantity, and more quantity, Ellen Ruppel Shell traces the rise of the bargain through our current big-box profusion to expose the astronomically high cost of cheap.

Just like the meteor that likely precipitated the end of the dinosaurs, social media is having a monumental impact on the world’s economy; a change so dramatic that it has created a new business era. Welcome… to the Social Age.

What does the Social Age mean for your business? Containing stories, analysis of real-world scenarios, and indispensable guidance, A World Gone Social gives you the tools and information you need to survive–and thrive–in a business climate in which customers hold all the cards… jobseekers have the power to easily find out what working at your company isreally like… and expertise has become more democratic than ever as employees collaborate with each other, as well as with vendors, customers, and even competitors.

You’ll discover what the “Death of Large” and “Flat: The New Black” mean for you and your organization, how to build a socially enabled team that puts the customer experience first, and what it means to create an “OPEN” network of partners, collaborators, and brand champions. Filled with fascinating stories of success and failure at organizations including Barilla, Zappos, Bank of America, Lululemon, Abercrombie & Fitch, Southwest Airlines, and more, the book reveals how to avoid the dangers of insincerity as well as what it takes to become a “Blue Unicorn”–the social leader. Finally, you’ll learn how to objectively assess the fitness of your company’s current culture and social presence.

In the Social Age, companies unwilling to change will play the role of the dinosaurs: destined for extinction. A World Gone Social gives you the keys to avoid this fate–and lead your organization into this exciting business climate.