|
Reviews of books on client development |
|
|
Brain Tattoos: Creating Unique Brands This book has a lot of creative marketing ideas, beginning with Chapter Four. But throughout most of the book, Karen Post confuses marketing with branding. That is, she treats all of marketing as though it were branding. Post has spent the past 20-plus years as a "strategic branding" consultant. In fact, she calls herself the branding diva and uses a little trademark symbol after it, like this: The Branding Diva™. Branding is the the most important thing in Post's professional life, of course. She wants branding to be the most important thing in your life too – not just your professional life, but your whole life. In Post's view of the world, everything is branding and branding is everything. You brand your product or service, you brand your organization, and you brand yourself. The latter, your personal brand, she memorably calls "brand moi." You brand yourself not only to advance in your career or to promote your product or service, but to let everyone know (when you introduce yourself at parties, for example) who you are and what you're about. "Brand Moi is your personal mark that makes you special, memorable, desirable...." Even college students can use brands moi as a "ticket to greater success." Good
marketing tips If you really want to learn about branding in the narrow sense, however, this book will only confuse you. The first problem is the book's title. Brain tattoos? What was she thinking? It doesn't make intuitive sense. It doesn't evoke a brilliant image. It doesn't resonate. The second problem is the lack of a clear definition. In the Introduction she explains (or tries to) that a "brand is a mental imprint." Then she leaps to this definition: "A Brain Tattoo is a stronger brand than the norm, rich with promise, bold with purpose, distinct and prominently inked onto your buyer's cranium." Two paragraphs later she says, "A Brain Tattoo is reality branding," though she never explains what she means by reality branding. Now we get the impression that a brain tattoo is a certain kind of branding, not synonymous with normal branding. But then, throughout much of the book she uses the two terms synonymously. At the beginning of Chapter One, for example, she says, "A brand, or what I refer to as Brain Tattoo, is a psychological impression of value-based emotions, lodged in the mind of a buyer or prospect." My hunch is, Post decided she wants to be known, maybe 10 or 15 years from now, as the visionary who coined the phrase brain tattoo. My prediction is, nobody will remember the phrase in 10 or 15 years. About
the author About the reviewer |
NAVIGATION Visit the publisher's website CONTACT INFORMATION 390 Fora Place Highland Park, Illinois 60035 Phone 847-204-6848 Contact by e-mail
|
|
|
|