Product Description

Brands and branding are the most significant contributions that commerce has ever made to popular culture. But branding has now moved so far beyond its commercial origins that consumer response has entered uncharted territory. Wally Olins sets out the ground rules for branding success in the 21st century, explaining why understanding the links between business, brand and consumer has never been more vital for commercial success. It will be an essential purchase for everyone in advertising, marketing and business who needs to understand why the most successful brands in the world triumph by making insiders believe in them - and consumers buy into them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28937 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
'Wally tells it how it is... a man who knows his stuff and refuses to mince his words' - Blueprint

About the Author
Wally Olins' seminal book Corporate Identity has sold over 70,000 copies worldwide. He is currently Visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School and Said Business School, Oxford.

Customer Reviews

genius.
I've followed Wally Olins career over the years and was intrigued when he released 'On Brand'. I bought a copy immediately and my first comment would be in agreement with a comment on the back of the book - this is the only book on branding you ever haver have to buy. Intelligent, insightful, compelling, inspiring. Wally knows the industry inside out and this really comes across in every page of the book. Whatever level you're at - student, academic, seasoned marketeer, you can learn from this book.

I look forward to learning more from his next book.

Buy it - it will change your life.

The one textbook
Wally Olins has been a leading brand creator ever since branding first became a separate discipline. He is the most quoted, most respected, and most complete author on branding. And this is his most complete book (to date).

This is not necessarily a visionary or inspiring book. Olins is telling us where we have been, not where we are going. In a lot of ways, this is branding's great textbook -- almost all of the wisdom of branding over the last fifty years is at least referenced here.

In a lot of ways, but not all ways. There is a small modicum of opinion mixed in with established practice. Or, rather, this book is entirely a book of Olins's opinions, but those opinions are textbook in 95% of all he wants to tell us. I'm not saying he is wrong in the other 5% -- for example, he pours scorn on Unique Selling Propositions in a similar way to Ogilvy -- but some of these opinions run against mainstream views.

For my money -- and I've spent quite a lot of it on books on this subject -- this is one of the two best books on branding. The other is The 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding by Al Ries. The two books are opposites of each other. Olins tells you everything there is to know, and you can pretty much rely on everything he tells you. Ries challenges (I think correctly, but still controversially) many of the commonest misconceptions about what branding is and how to do it. Ries will give you a head-start in getting to grips with the work, Olins offers you the complete course. Ries is fast-food, Olins is decidedly chewy, and you will need to come back to it several times.

Absolutely recommended.

Informative, but not visionary
Wally Olins provides a comprehensive insight in the history and development of brands, their effect on audiences and employees, and the benefits for business success. Nevertheless i found it lacking in adressing in depth the rapid change of brand perception and usage in a globalised web 2.0 world.

Olins point of view is still centered on how to control brands on the company side. I cannot recall reading about what brands can contribute to culture, little does he write about social responsibility or the way people will interact increasingly with the brands they favour, and how that will change brand culture from the bottom up.

So basically i found it valid concerning brand history and explaining brand strategies so far, but lacking in understanding and vision of current developments (only 13 pages of the 250 page book deal with the "future of branding").