His search revealed seven definable assets that together construct the belief system that lies behind every successful brand, whether it's a product, service, city, personality, social cause, or movement. In Primal Branding, Hanlon explores those seven components, known as the primal code, and shows how to use and combine them to create a community of believers in which the consumer develops a powerful emotional attachment to the brand. These techniques, work for everyone involved in creating and selling an image-from marketing managers to social advocates to business leaders seeking to increase customer preference for new or existing products. Primal Branding presents a world of new possibility for marketers of every stripe—and the opportunity to move from being just another product on the shelf to becoming a desired and necessary part of the culture.

    Learn how to reshape your approach to branding, advertising, social media, networking and more—ultimately, making more money, while spending less.

    Successfully connecting your product with consumers isn’t a matter of following trends, comparing yourself to the competition or trying to attract the widest customer base.So what is it? April Dunford, positioning guru and tech exec, will enlighten you.Her new book, Obviously Awesome, shows you how to find your product’s “secret sauce”—and then sell that sauce to those who crave it. Having spent years as a startup executive (with 16 product launches under her belt) and a consultant (who’s worked on dozens more), Dunford speaks with authority about breaking through the noise of a crowded market.Punctuated with witty anecdotes and compelling case studies, Dunford’s book is at once entertaining and illuminating. Among the invaluable lessons you’ll learn are:- The Five Components of Effective Positioning- How to instantly connect an audience to your offering’s value- How to choose the best market for your products- How to use three distinct styles of positioning to your advantage- How to leverage market trends to help buyers understand why making a purchase is important right nowWhether you’re an entrepreneur, marketer or salesperson struggling to bring inventive products to market, Dunford’s insights will help you find your awesome, so that your customers can too.

    Ideas for new businesses, solutions to the world's problems, and artistic breakthroughs are common, but great execution is rare. According to Scott Belsky, the capacity to make ideas happen can be developed by anyone willing to develop their organizational habits and leadership capability. That's why he founded Behance, a company that helps creative people and teams across industries develop these skills. Belsky has spent six years studying the habits of creative people and teams that are especially productive-the ones who make their ideas happen time and time again. After interviewing hundreds of successful creatives, he has compiled their most powerful-and often counterintuitive-practices, such as: •Generate ideas in moderation and kill ideas liberally •Prioritize through nagging •Encourage fighting within your team While many of us obsess about discovering great new ideas, Belsky shows why it's better to develop the capacity to make ideas happen-a capacity that endures over time.

    Most entrepreneurs, even seasoned brand managers, launch first and then work on slowly transforming the new offering into a brand. A logical progression, I would agree. After all, how can you possibly launch as a brand if you don't have any customers or marketing outreach and--obviously, since you just launched a new offering--you have no legacy or advocates?The simple answer is by design. Design relates to the systematic process you have to adhere to, which is likely the primary reason you are holding this book in your hands. In addition though, design truly holds the key to the success of your new brand. It will set your offering apart to look, feel, and sound like a brand at the time of launch, as opposed to something that might or might not have the power to eventually turn into a brand. This book will teach you how to launch your brand by design.In this book I share expert insights based on two decades of professional experience transforming new product and service ventures from ideation phases to tangible brand realities. Each of the key phases of preparing for a brand launch are broken down into practical guidelines designed to help you make the right branding decisions along the way.

    it sticks where you put it. So are the ideas in this book. If you're ready to make a commitment and are willing to make something happen, John's book is a great place to start."--Seth Godin, author of "Purple Cow""For all those who wonder why John Jantsch has become the leading advisor and coach to small businesses everywhere, " Duct Tape Marketing "is the answer. I have never read a business book that is as packed with hands-on, actionable information as this one. There are takeaways in every paragraph, and the success of John's blog is living proof that they work." Duct Tape Marketing "should be required reading for anyone who is building a business, or thinking about it."--Bo Burlingham, editor-at-large, "Inc. magazine," and author of "Small Giants: Companies That Choose To Be Great Instead of Big""Duct Tape Marketing is a worthy addition to the growing library of how-to books on small business marketing -- concise, clear, practical, and packed with great ideas to boost your bottom line."--Bob Bly, author of "The White Paper Handbook""With the world suffering from depleted reserves of trust, a business that sells plenty of it every day tends to create the most value. The great thing about trust as a product feature is that it delivers exceptional returns. With this book, John Jantsch has zeroed in on exactly what small businesses need to sell every day, every hour."--Ben McConnell, co-author of "Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force""John Jantsch has provided small businesses with the perfect perspective for maximizing all marketing activities - offline and on. Jantsch has the plan to help you thrive in the world of business today. Read it, all your competitors will."--John Battelle, cofounding editor or "Wired" and author of "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture "Duct Tape Marketing" is a great read for anyone in business. It has fresh ideas laid out in a practical and useable way. I highly recommend this book for growing any business."--Dr. Ivan Misner, Founder of BNI and Co-author of the "New York Times" bestseller, "Masters of Networking "

      Still in his early thirties, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck.  Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.    There are many others like Chris – those who’ve found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful.  Sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn’t depend on shelving what you currently do.  You can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful.   In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies.  In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.   Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who’ve learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment.  It’s all about finding the intersection between your “expertise” – even if you don’t consider it such -- and what other people will pay for.  You don’t need an MBA, a business plan or even employees.  All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.   Not content to talk in generalities, Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick.  Among Chris’s key principles: if you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish – sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins.   In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold.  Today, we know that it’s up to us to change our lives.  And the best part is, if we change our own life, we can help others change theirs.  This remarkable book will start you on your way.

    This is it. Don't Call It That is a step-by-step workbook that will guide you through the naming process. A Hundred Monkeys Creative Director, Eli Altman, will help you develop attention grabbing names that speak to your audience and establish the seed of your brand. The book is like that friend who isn't afraid to tell you what you need to hear. It'll help you understand what's at stake and how to approach naming creatively without neglecting practical realities like positioning, trademarks and URLs. How do you find a name that's available? How do you find a name that grabs people's attention? How do you tell the difference between a good name and a bad name? How do you test names in the real world? How do you find a name that elevates you above the competition Don't Call It That will set you straight.

    Period. In this economy ruled by ideas, the only sustainable form of leadership is brand leadership.The book offers a practical view of how branding decisions happen in the context of business strategy, not just in marketing communications. It brings in business strategy, customer experience, and anthropological perspectives as well.This new and adapted version of the book carries the design and follows the same format from the previous versions but includes many important additions, including information on how traditional branding is being challenged in a connected world as well as new case studies of companies that have applied similar concepts to achieve success.

    Platform is the why-to, how-to handbook by top expert Cynthia Johnson for everyone who wants to develop and manage a personal brand. In Platform, Johnson explains the process of going from unknown to influencer by achieving personal proof, social proof, recognition, and association. Johnson herself went from an on-staff social media manager to social media influencer, entrepreneur, and marketing thought-leader in just three years using her process of accelerated brand development, continuous brand management, and strategic growth. Fans of #GirlBoss and #AskGaryVee, who wonder how their favorite influencers found their voices and built their audiences, will find the answers here and discover that the process is technical, creative, tactical, and much easier than they might have expected.

    What do these great brands have in common?"What Great Brands Do" shows how these firms rely on a brand-as-business management approach to grow and succeed in tough economic climates, regardless of the size of their marketing budgets. "What Great Brands Do" distills their approach into seven guiding principles and accompanying best practices to provide a thoughtful and practical methodology for putting a company's brand in the driver's seat of the organization. The seven principles are: Great brands start insideGreat brands avoid selling productsGreat brands ignore trendsGreat brands don't chase customersGreat brands sweat the small stuffGreat brands commit and stay committedGreat brands never need to "give back"Research suggests that only a small portion of companies practice brand-building the way great brands do--a recent survey of marketing executives revealed that 64 percent feel that their brands do not influence decisions made at their companies. Nearly two-thirds of companies are pouring millions of dollars into marketing and advertising without aligning their business strategies with the brand values and attributes they're communicating. As a result, the full business value of those brands is going unrealized. "What Great Brands Do "intends to change the ways readers think about and work with brand-building, and the book is essential reading for any business leader who wants to ensure that current brand activities help lay the foundation for continued growth.

    But, marketing departments are still operating in the same, campaign-centric, product-led operation that they have been following for 75 years. The most innovative companies around the world have achieved remarkable marketing results by fundamentally changing their approach. By creating value for customers through the use of owned media and the savvy use of content, these businesses have dramatically increased customer loyalty and revenue. Some of them have even taken it to the next step and developed a marketing function that actually pays for itself.Killing Marketing explores how these companies are ending the marketing as we know it--in favor of this new, exciting model.Killing Marketing provides the insight, approaches, and examples you need to understand these disruptive forces in ways that turn your marketing from cost center to revenue creator. This book builds the case for, literally, transforming the purpose of marketing within your organization. Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose of the Content Marketing Institute show how leading companies are able sell the very content that propels their marketing strategy. You'll learn how to:* Transform all or part of your marketing operation into a media company* Integrate this new operation into traditional marketing efforts* Develop best practices for attracting and retaining audiences* Build a strategy for competing against traditional media companies* Create a paid/earned media strategy fueled by an owned media strategyRed Bull, Johnson & Johnson, Disney and Arrow Electronics have succeeded in what ten years ago would have been deemed impossible. They continue to market their products as they always have, and, through their content-driven and audience-building initiatives, they drive value outside the day-to-day products they sell--and monetize it directly.Killing Marketing rewrites the rules of marketing--enabling you to make the kind of transition that turns average companies into industry legends.

    Discover the aspirational currency that makes your brand one that people want to be or want to be friends with. Learn how to be real with your audience and make strategic associations to establish credibility. Brand Against the Machine will help you stand out, get noticed, and be remembered.Brand Against the Machine is the blueprint for how to market your brand to attract better clients and stand out from the clutter that is traditional corporate branding and marketing.Instant Positioning Method: How to instantly stand out from the crowd and position yourself as a resource, not just another service provider The 20/60/20 Rule: Why it's important to take a stand and why it's okay to have haters--because it creates a stronger bond with those who love you Ditch your traditional corporate branding and marketing, and exchange it for something memorable. Your customers will thank you for it.

    Under such pressure to stay alive—let alone grow—it’s easy for entrepreneurs to get caught up in a never-ending cycle of “sell it—do it, sell it—do it” that leaves them exhausted, frustrated, and unable to get ahead no matter how hard they try.This is the exact situation Mike Michalowicz found himself in when he was trying to grow his first company. Although it was making steady money, there was never very much left over and he was chasing customers left and right, putting in twenty-eight-hour days, eight days a week. The punishing grind never let up. His company was alive but stunted, and he was barely breathing. That’s when he discovered an unlikely source of inspiration—pumpkin farmers.After reading an article about a local farmer who had dedicated his life to growing giant pump­kins, Michalowicz realized the same process could apply to growing a business. He tested the Pumpkin Plan on his own company and transformed it into a remarkable, multimillion-dollar industry leader. First he did it for himself. Then for others. And now you. So what is the Pumpkin Plan?Plant the right seeds: Don’t waste time doing a bunch of different things just to please your customers. Instead, identify the thing you do better than anyone else and focus all of your attention, money, and time on figuring out how to grow your company doing it. Weed out the losers: In a pumpkin patch small, rotten pumpkins stunt the growth of the robust, healthy ones. The same is true of customers. Figure out which customers add the most value and provide the best opportunities for sustained growth. Then ditch the worst of the worst. Nurture the winners: Once you figure out who your best customers are, blow their minds with care. Discover their unfulfilled needs, innovate to make their wishes come true, and overdeliver on every single promise.Full of stories of other successful entrepreneurs, The Pumpkin Plan guides you through unconven­tional strategies to help you build a truly profitable blue-ribbon company that is the best in its field.

    Storyscapes introduces "storyscaping" as a way to create immersive experiences that solve the challenge of connecting brands and consumers. This book describes a powerful new approach to advertising and marketing for the digital age that involves using stories to design emotional and transactional experiences for customers, both online and offline. Each connection inspires engagement with another, so the brand becomes part of the customer's story. Authors Gaston Legorburu and Darren McColl explain how marketers can identify and define the core target audience segment, define your brand's purpose, understand the emotional desires of your consumers, and more.•Shows how to map how the consumer engages with the category and product/service•Explains how to develop an organizing idea and creative plan for an immersive storyscape experience•Defines the role of marketing channels around the organizing idea•Establishes how technology can be applied to the experienceLearn how to measure, optimize, and evolve the customer experience through the use of strong narratives that compel consumers to buy into your brand.