Good things come in small packages

Earlier this year, I asked you to Help define the buzzword marketers love (and I hate). Yep, that buzzword was (and remains) the word “branding.”

Enter The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design by Marty Neumeier.

The first thing you notice, the book is perhaps the shortest 200 pages you’ll ever read. The second thing: you’ve probably never learned so much with so little time. A blend of sparse words, graphics, typography and images, the author makes it work—because he’s found a perfect mix of form and content.

We read the book in the Outsource Marketing Book Club, and here’s what we appreciated most:

• The “Brand Gap” offers the simplest definition of branding we’ve ever seen, “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.” We’d like to see his definition become the definition for branding. That would clear up a lot of confusion and make it possible to diagnose a marketing problem and prescribe the treatment faster.
• It’s such a quick read, you can ask anyone in your organization to read it and unlike some esoteric books on the topic, you know they’ll actually get through it.
• Neumeier builds a case that companies should work with a cadre of best-of-breed external resources to get better marketing done. We couldn’t agree more – we’ve been doing that on our client’s behalf for the last decade.

Neumeier cuts through the brandinista gibberish and offers something for everybody—business executives, marketing managers and salespeople will all benefit from his straightforward, clear approach.

And that might solve one of the biggest challenges branding has—getting everyone on the same page regarding what branding really is.

Are you a fan of branding? Why or why not?