Bon Brand

Be On Brand has featured several book reviews and insights over the last 3 years. This selection links to those previous pages where by clicking on the book cover you can acquire the book at reasonable prices via amazon.

Personal Branding Books

The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Philip Green Way: 10 Secrets of the Billionaire Retail Magnate by Liz Barclay

The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Duncan Bannatyne Way: 10 Secrets of the Rags to Riches Dragon by Liz Barclay

The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Alan Sugar Way: 10 Secrets of the Boardroom’s Toughest Interviewer by Emma Murray.

The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Bill Gates Way: 10 Secrets of the World’s Richest Business Leader by Des Dearlove.

The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Richard Branson Way: 10 Secrets of the World’s Greatest Brand Builder by Des Dearlove.

The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Jamie Oliver Way: 10 Secrets of the Irrepressible One-Man Brand by Trevor Clawson.

Top Ten Books on Brand

1. Olins The Brand Book – what more can be said about brand with out feeling a Wally.
2. The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design by Marty Neumeier - more
3. Brand Identity Now - more
4. Build a Brand in 30 Days - more
5. The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business a personal branding series looking at Gates, Sugar, Branson, Bannatyne, Green etc.
6. Powerful Marketing On A Shoestring Budget For Small Businesses -  more
7. New Product Development – products to keep your brand fresh  various titles
8. The Big Three Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys – Supermarkets  – exposed
9. Designing Brand Identity - more
10. Windows the Art of Retail Display – by Mary Portas

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

“Take-Home Lessons” include a definition of Brand as “…. a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company. It’s not what you say it is. It’s what THEY say it is.”

“Differentiation has evolved from a focus on ‘what it is,’ to ‘what it does,’ to ‘how you’ll feel,’ to ‘who you are.’ While features, benefits, and price are still important to people, experiences and personal identity are even more important.”

Where is your business on this journey?

Logo Design Love is a guide for designers who want to understand what this mysterious business is all about.

The blurb on the back cover gives a hint of what to expect.

* Why one logo is more effective than another
* How to create their own iconic designs
* What sets some designers above the rest
* Best practices for working with clients
* 25 practical design tips for creating logos that last

Available from Amazon Logo Design LoveA Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities

Logo Design range of books from Amazon

The mistakes I have made on this site are many and various. I have highlighted a few below just to forewarn the unwary who may be planning a similar enterprise.

Bonbrand Early Stage Mistakes

• The site started as vanity publishing with no focus, plan or real intent behind the site.
• The name is confused! I am Brian and B on brand sounded OK! Why did I then add Be On Brand – well spelling has never been my strong subject.
• The site has been set up and run on the cheap – well it costs nothing – how cheap is that but does it show?
• The use of logos, designed or belonging to companies, has been fraught with concern over copyright. This seems a killer for a site keen to espouse the value of Intellectual property.

Read more »

It seems the Netto brand will disappear in UK after the sale of  193 stores to Asda. So this search button will no longer help!

Market share seems to be the mantra for supermarkets and this deal may keep Asda at number 2 behind Tesco.

The question for the brand is will Asda be able to compete with Lidl and Aldi

Value for money takes on a wider importance during a recession.
Cost conscious buyers can move down a price band to help balance the budget. Being positioned as a value for money organisation in this market like Primark, Netto (now Lidl or Aldi) or a Ryan Air can help sales and brand exposure.

Netto have just posted an above average market growth of 7% and the future is bright (the future is Yellow to coin an old ad campaign). These strong results have been earned over years of brand positioning.
You can’t become a VFM organisation overnight if you haven’t earned the credentials.

Royal Warrants are a mark of recognition to individuals or companies who have supplied goods or services for at least five years to HM The Queen, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh or HRH The Prince of Wales.

Shield Pest Control UK Ltd should have taken more care and control of the logo on their web site (but we all make mistakes except when working for Her Majesty! Or so one would think .  How many SS’s in Queen?)

Pest control is probably not the easiest business to brand but rodent exterminator to the Queen is a good start.  As the web is not a facility they manage particularly well we have not given their site the benefit of a link.

Dukes Royal Warrant

I was researching a paper on the Royal Warrants and was socked by the Duke of Edinburgh’s sock and jumper maker Lyle & Scott. Interestingly the web site has several images of that modern icon of style and acting the late Telly Savalas and Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and others. Perhaps this evokes the ‘Vintage’   brand they are pushing.

I don’t get the registered Golden Eagle but the motif has graced better jumpers than mine so if it works don’t knock it.

Has your Brand a clearly demonstrated consumer benefit?
I was set thinking by the cover of Nursery today which featured Saplings ‘The Cot Specialist’ .

If you can own the territory that goes with the strapline ‘The Cot Specialist’ then your brand should stand out in the crowded market. This chosen phrase demonstrates a consumer benefit and an aspiration for the young business and I wish them well.
Please keep the website fresh.

Nursery Today is one of the UK’s many trade magazines. A good knowledge and working relationship with your trade press and your customers press is one of the simple intellectual assets you can acquire for nothing if you work at it.

Businesses with several brands and sub brands need to consider their Brand Portfolio and how the corporate architecture promotes and protects the brands.

Brand Types in Your Architecture

Strategic brands will be those anticipated to provide the stream of future profits and are at the pinnacle of your brand architecture. For the business these are Iconic brands that should go to the heart of the organisation.
Cash cow brands support the base of the brand architecture but need enough resources to do the job.
Silver bullet brands are the hope and faith brands which often get a disproportionate amount of resource.
Linchpin brands link the corporate and market structures together and may form a uniting influence across the product range and overall business.

Managing the Brand Architecture

The first step is to portray your Brand Architecture with logical descriptions, markets, channels, and drivers. See various representations
You wouldn’t change the architecture of your buildings on a whim and neither should you change your brand architecture. New product development (npd) should be planned and considered from all angles including brand planning.
A formal policy to add or delete a brand or sub-brand should be established and maintained.
The visual presentation and imagery of new brands and changes to old brands should be controlled.

Comment on Brand Architecture

Auditing your Brand Architecture will help you focus on the holistic nature of your brand architecture to the overall business.
Use the results of a review or audit to think about cause and effect and make only those changes that fit with your corporate ethos and style.
Identify scope for new brands, sub brands or co-branding opportunities.
If you need to cull a brand consider spin off or sale of the brand.
Brand Architecture is the framework that holds your business together. It exists even if you have just allowed brand architecture to ‘come into being’. Like most things if well managed it will improve your overall performance.

It pays to keep your business to a manageable size and not to overextend.
Even the greatest ideas to develop your brand or move into new areas can consume scarce resources of time, goodwill and cash.

Bud Off is a term that encourages you to allow your business to divide and form new branches (or twigs) that can be hived off and sold. You keep brand focus on your core competences and potentially generate a new stream of investment capital. Alternatively you may be able to take a partial reward as one part leaves.

Cut the umbilical if you have diversified and it hasn’t quite worked consider closing or winding up the venture. It brings you back to your core brand that may have been starved of your time and attention as you looked after the ailing child.
It may be hard to acknowledge a mistake but get over it and get on with your future development.

Say No if there is a new idea or opportunity. Unless the new idea is key to your brand development and offers a far better and safer return than sticking to your knitting.
Good business’s spin out lots of ideas and options. great business’s select those that are worth time, effort and resources without deflecting the core brand investment.

Further comment

Portfolio simplification and brand pruning are needed; the big question is how do you decide which brands to keep and which to harvest or divest. The real challenge is in developing a brand portfolio strategy after the fact. (Alan Adamson)

Brand Pruning can be defined as a process by which a company cuts of those Brands and line brands, which has less contribution on its bottom-line or some times top line as well. This is almost a continuous process particularly for FMCG and white goods. From Brand Pruning-A wisely used tool in the Marketers’ Arsenal. By Rajkumar Dasgupta,Sr. Lecturer/Dr. Harish Pareek

Handbook of Niche Marketing: Principles and Practice (Haworth Series in Segmented, Targeted, and Customized Market) by Art Wienstien available from Amazon