Brand Book Bites from BRAND A-Z
– the book: BRAND A-Z, the latest book from Marty Neumeier, is a dictionary of 1,000 current terms in brand strategy, design, marketing, advertising, innovation, and management. It’s a much-needed update from the original edition published in 2004.
– the brains: I’ve been a fan of Marty’s ever since he wrote The Brand Gap, a deceptively short and simple primer on brands and how to bridge the gap between brand strategy and execution. I learned so much from his perspective on brand-building and the way he served it up. His other books including Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands and The 46 Rules of Genius: An Innovator’s Guide to Creativity (Voices That Matter) have been equally influential on my thinking.
– the best bits: Being a dictionary, BRAND A-Z isn’t the sort of book that you read as much as you refer to — but it is fun to flip through and see the breadth of topics it includes. Plus it’s an interactive e-book, meaning the terms are hyperlinked, so you can get caught up in a journey of discovery and enlightenment as you follow the links wherever they lead.
To give a flavor of what you might learn, here is a sampling of terms and definitions from the letter “D”:
demand elasticity: In marketing, the sensitivity of sales patterns to a change in price
design: The discipline or process of changing an existing situation to a preferred one
differentiation: The process of establishing a unique market position to increase profit margins and avoid commoditization; a central principle of positioning
digital native: A person immersed in the internet from an early age
divergent thinking: A mode of thinking that combines fluency, flexibility, and originality to produce new ideas
– the bottom line: I’ll summarize the book with the blurb that Marty asked me to provide as an Editorial Review: “BRAND A-Z is a comprehensive resource that all brand-builders can’t – and shouldn’t – live without. It’s filled with clear, pithy, and enlightening definitions that will help you navigate the brand new world we live and work in today.”
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