Brand Babble: Sense and Nonsense About Branding

by Don Schultz and Heidi Schultz

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.

Product Details
Hardcover:156 pages
ISBN: 0-538-72714-4
What the experts are saying about Brand Babble: Sense and Nonsense About Branding

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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
About the authors of
Brand Babble: Sense and Nonsense About Branding

Don E. Schultz is Professor Emeritus of integrated Marketing Communications at the

Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, Visiting Professor, Cranfield
School of Management, Bedfordshire, UK, Adjunct Professor as Queensland University
of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, and President of Agora Inc., based in Evanston, IL.
He has consulted, lectured, and held seminars on integrated marketing communications,
marketing and branding in Europe, South America, Asia/Pacific, the Middle East,
Australia, and North America. His articles have appeared in Advertising Age, Journal of
Advertising Research, Marketing Communications, Journal of Business Strategy, and
Marketing News. He is author/co-author of 11 books, including Strategic Brand
Campaigns, Sales Promotion Management, Measuring Brand Communication ROI,
Communicating Globally, and Integrated Marketing Communications, which was the
first book in this emerging field.

Heidi F. Schultz is Executive Vice-President of Agora, Inc., a marketing and branding

consulting firm based in Evanston, IL, and a lecturer in Northwestern University's
Department of Integrated Marketing Communications. She is a frequent speaker on
integrated marketing and brand communications and conducts training sessions for
corporations, marketing service providers, and media organizations. She has served as
subject matter expert on four seminal benchmarking studies by the American
Productivity and Quality Center and has authored articles that appeared in Advertising
Age, Marketing Management, and the Journal of Marketing Communications.
Table of contents for
Brand Babble: Sense and Nonsense About Branding

by Don Schultz and Heidi Schultz

Preface: Some Rules for Business Books 4

1 What Is a Brand? 9

2 Who Owns the Brand? 20

3 Separating Hula Hoops from Viable Brands 30

4 Dogs, Pigeons, Focus Groups, and Other Exotic Brand Research Techniques
41

5 Mental Models, S-Curves, and Multi-Tasking 53

6 Reification, Abstractionism, Tribal Dances, and Other Mumbo-jumbo about

Brands and Branding 63

7 Avoiding the Mental Model Minefields 71

8 Magic Words, Mystic Signs, and Other Incomprehensible Incantations 80

9 Going Global 89

10 Birth Pains and Stretch Marks 98

11 Media Planning and Buying-An Arcane Science? 106

12 Why Branding Doesn't Take a Ton of Media Spending 118

13 Brand Tracking in the Himalayas: Nice to Know, But Not Very Useful as a Brand
Measure 128

14 Searching for Brand Equity in All the Right Places 138

15 Future Babble 148

Index 154