This book is about both the "good news" and the "bad news" of branding. And, it's vitally important to the success of your business. The good news is that the brand is finally getting the important marketing and corporate attention it so rightly deserves. The bad news is, unfortunately, much the same. The brand is getting a lot of attention-and with that, is coming much misguided, misdirected, ill-conceived, nonsensical advice, advice that often is ruining perfectly good companies and perfectly good brands. That's why Brand Babble is so important today. Don and Heidi Schultz, long-time branding authors, educators, and investigators, explode an array of myths that have been passing and passed on as "branding wisdom."

The Schultzes show the way out of the current-day branding morass. First, they show how every successful brand is the sum of relationships between buyer and setter. Then they explain how marketers best communicate with their customers through an integrated approach that reflects the nature of that relationship. Those approaches set the stage for value-based branding that delivers the best value proposition to customers and increases the bottom-tine, financial value of the brand to the organization and its owners and shareholders.

That, today, is the "currency" of value-based branding. Getting to it is merely a matter of cutting through all the brand babble, all the nonsense about brands and branding that is posing as new marketing insight.

The information in your copy of Brand Babble: Sense and Nonsense About Branding will be the essential ingredient in more insightful, easier, and, most important, more profitable branding work for both your company and your customers.

Preface: Some Rules for Business Books

1. What Is a Brand?
2. Who Owns the Brand?
3. Separating Hula Hoops from Viable Brands
4. Dogs, Pigeons, Focus Groups, and Other Exotic Brand Research Techniques
5. Mental Models, S-Curves, and Multi-Tasking
6. Reification, Abstractionism, Tribal Dances, and Other Mumbo-jumbo about Brands and Branding
7. Avoiding the Mental Model Minefields
8. Magic Words, Mystic Signs, and Other Incomprehensible Incantations
9. Going Global
10. Birth Pains and Stretch Marks
11. Media Planning and Buying-An Arcane Science?
12. Why Branding Doesn't Take a Ton of Media Spending
13. Brand Tracking in the Himalayas: Nice to Know, But Not Very Useful as a Brand Measure
14. Searching for Brand Equity in All the Right Places
15. Future Babble

Index

"Don and Heidi have done it again. Here, they deploy all of their worldly wisdom and communication skills in making branding accessible. Practitioners and students will be grateful for their robust approach to a subject that needs to be understood by everyone in business."

Tim Ambler
Senior Fellow
London Business School

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"Finally, a book that points out all of the gibberish being spouted about branding. The Schultzes are candid and insightful, but also entertaining, in clearing the air on this topic. Anyone involved in brand-building should read their book now-before investing another nickel on anything else about branding."

Joe Cappo
Former Publisher
Advertising Age

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"Before investing another dime on brand-related matters, managers and executives should read Brand Babble. Don and Heidi cut through the clutter surrounding the brand, often an organization's biggest and least understood asset. Their knowledge about this truly complex subject offers valuable insights on getting the best return on brand equity . . . without wasteful spending."

Franziska Dacek
Vice President, Corporate Communications
Swagelok Company

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"Don and Heidi have done a masterful job of cutting through all the clutter and noise to give us a thoughtful, pragmatic and user-friendly look at the branding world as it exists today and-more importantly-how it should look tomorrow."

Scott Davis
Managing Partner Prophet Brand Strategy
Author of Brand Asset Management and Building the Brand Driven Business

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"Another great book by Don & Heidi Schultz, which cuts through the 'brand babble' and gets straight to the point. Interesting, insightful and full of useful analogies. A goldmine of helpful information and a must for all marketers bookshelves."

David Haigh
 CEO
Brand Finance plc

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"Any executive who prides him or herself on truly understanding the big picture of how to brand and what there really is to gain from it-or who is building their library for training team members-will want this book."

Marsha Lindsay
President & CEO
The Brand Development Firm
Lindsay, Stone & Briggs

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"Brand Babble is another Don Schultz straight-talking, no-nonsense piece that brilliantly cuts through advertising hype to reveal the common sense of branding. It's full of great examples and solid business propositions. It will ruffle a few feathers as it logically demonstrates that brands must have a meaningful value proposition. If you want to understand brand building, you have to read this book."

Peter Simon
Senior Partner
Simon Richards Group
Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia