The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design

Clear and to the point. Marty Neumeier articulates his “best practices” to branding, debunks old myths and brings fresh perspective to helping businesses communicate themselves in the most effective and strategic ways. He explains the gap between creativity and strategy is often too large and therefore business are suffering. The left and right brain are not working together.The answer to the mile-wide gap? Neumeier argues it is the charismatic brand. He explains getting this brand requires 5 disciplines: Differentiate, Collaborate, Innovate, Validate, Cultivate. The entirety of the book is unpacking these disciplines and applying them to real-world experiences.The down side to this book is the examples are not all relevant; many of the examples are outdated. For example: he referenced on page 97 how web pages cram too much data on the home page and are unappealing to read. However, the majority of today’s web pages are specifically designed with ascetics and simplicity in mind. He also mentions technology phobia and the fear of web design, while in today’s world that is not the case.Overall, the application of the 5 disciplines are relevant in any persons context, despite some of the outdated references. The book is marketing heavy, but does not present itself with advertising jargon; he is not writing exclusively to advertisers or business executive, but to a much larger audience. Although it is marketing heavy, it is still applicable to the common man.The best part of the book is the design and style. He writes with simplicity in mind. He expresses his points clearly, with examples, and clarity. Neumeier’s packaging of the book is a manifestation of his own beliefs. It goes against the grain of the typical book layout; presented with lots of pictures, large fonts, creative sayings and captivating graphics. The book is like none I have seen. He implements two 2 of the 5 disciplines: differentiated and innovative. Must read for anyone wanting to better communicate their product.

Marty does an excellent job of defining what brand is and isn’t. Highly recommend reading this book if you’re a freelancer or agency owner.

When I normally look at a book and decide whether or not to read it, I normally do an overview of the contents of the book. If I was not assigned to read this book, I don’t know if I would have made it past the overview of chapters just because there were so many words all jumbled into one page, makes the book seem a little too intimidating . To add to that, a book on branding seems like it would be heavy reading anyway and to see and outline of chapters like that would maybe scare me off. While reading the book I did appreciate the index to help with all of the scary business like all cap letters “CBOS”. The index was easy to and helpful throughout the reading. I LOVED all of the pictures in this book; this commit alone may make my review worthless to all of you literary geniuses, but to those of you who are nervous about the word ”branding”, the pictures make this book worth the read and help get its point across. The introduction to this book really sets the pace for the outline of this book, how kind of quirky it is set up and how easy it is to read. In the short 2 ½ page introduction, Neumeier make it clear where he wants to start from. He starts with a clean and fresh start of what a brand is not, it is not a logo, identity or product, then he explains what a brand is, it is a gut feeling. The conclusion to this book is wonderful, especially if you want to talk to someone else about this book, you can look at Neumeier’s “take-home lessons” and easily teach someone the basic concepts in this book. I love the idea of the virtuous circle, like so many things that work well; they work as a team and keep growing. He continues to stress the point that he made in the introduction that branding is about a gut feeling, that we must tie together logic and magic to create the circle that leads to differentiation to collaboration to innovation to validation to cultivation.Differentiation asks certain questions for you to be able to have focus in you company, he stresses the importance of asking these three questions: 1) Who are you? 2) What do you do? 3) Why does it matter?Collaboration means working together and knowing that you all need one another. He claims that the best way to collaborate in today’s market is to outsource to a one stop shop and to a brand agency, also to work with the brand internally with a marketing team. Using all three of these ways creates a healthy and multi-vantage point view of how to create the best product and company.Innovation stresses that as a company that wants to be creative it is imperative to not go with the crowd and be creative while being logical. If you’re not scaring people with your ideas, you’re not being creative enough to be innovative.Validation is important in our very social world, we need to make space to receive feedback and let our customers know they are being heard.Cultivation is about showing that the brand is you, is the image that you are trying to make for your company match the behavior of your company?I loved that this book was a short and easy read; I loved the pictures and the graphs to help make a point and add some humor sometimes. I would recommend this book for anyone who is ready to jump out and ride the virtuous circle.

Must have for branding and also a great yearly reminder book.