Most North American executives still fundamentally misunderstand brand’s true meaning. But once you realize that it is what people think of you, you realize it is your culture.  Now you can build a remark-able brand that cuts through competing messaging, helps you attract, retain and inspire the best and brightest, and leverages the full power of branding – our single remaining advantage over China and the East Asian economies.

After five years of appearances as a Globe and Mail business bestseller, this new, fully updated edition is packed with entertaining and practical new stories, along with numerous actionable frameworks, on how to build a brand for the 21st century – starting by rooting it in an inspiring core purpose and brand foundation.

From Brand: It Ain’t the Logo*
The Globe and Mail #1 Bestseller

Kill the Bunny?

Complicit with the Brand’s New Friends were its “Old Friends” – the people on the client side who were bored or even hateful of the Brand message and were willing to do something, anything, to change it.  Eventually it happens in every organization.  I had Energizer batteries as a client for several years and every year we’d have a meeting to work on their strategy for selling through retail stores.  Not a single meeting went by without one of the Energizer execs pleading with me:  “Do we have to use that damn bunny again?”

Luckily we managed to convince them, year in and year out, to stick with the bunny.  But the Energizer folks were an exception when it came to understanding the importance of consistency.  They were able to suppress their murderous urges because the bunny – a powerful core idea – was such a runaway winner.

Formalizing the Brand (Part One)

Old Friends and New Friends kept our clients’ Brand communications in a constant state of flux.  I wondered:  how will stakeholders – employees, customers, investors, suppliers, the media – know what to think of this Brand?  How are they supposed to figure out what the Brand is from one day to the next?

That’s when it hit me.  How the customer views the Brand is in fact what the Brand is.  Nothing else matters.  The company’s execs and its marketing department, busily preparing their next brochure or ad campaign, might think they know what the Brand is, but all they really know is what they want the Brand to be at that moment.  It is stakeholders, each and every one of them, who get to decide what the Brand is.

  • "Brand: It Ain't the Logo* should be required reading for anyone who sits around the ‘big table’ and for anyone who seeks to influence their decisions."

    Ken WongDistinguished Professor of Marketing and Business Strategy, Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, Member, Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends

  • "Frankly speaking, this is the best book on branding that I’ve ever read."

    Gabriel BouchardFormer President and Chief Brand Officer, Workopolis

  • "If you want highfalutin academic analysis, look elsewhere. But if you want clear, convincing and actionable advice on how to build your brand, you've come to the right place."

    Jim McElgunnSenior Editor, PROFIT Magazine