Citizen Brand

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY SEPT 16, 2002

As advertising becomes more insidious, seeping into taxis and bathroom stalls across the country, it's increasingly difficult for companies and products to stand out from the crowd and avoid being ignored by ad-weary consumers. In Gob 's follow-up to Emotional Branding, he outlines successful marketing strategies to help brands grow from conventional to innovative, assuring survival in a crowded marketplace. "The shift in thinking is from asking how we can motivate consumers to buy our product to asking instead how we can touch our consumers' lives." At the heart of Gob 's model of branding is the involvement of the brand in the community. Citing such famous examples as the Body Shop, Ben and Jerry's and Tom's of Maine, Gob argues that given the choice, consumers will pick a brand that demonstrates concern for the environment, human rights and social equality over one that does not. Gob 's prescriptions include creating an environment where consumers can "experience the brand," which helps demonstrate trustworthiness, and uniting form and function through unique and practical designs. Strikingly absent from this guide, however, is sufficient hard data to back up the author's assertions that social responsibility will boost sales and insure the longevity of a brand. There are also relatively few comparative scenarios to highlight how poor community relations, bad design or political gaffes could devastate even the most well-established companies. Gob 's ideas, however, are well conceived, and the book does offer scores of articulate examples of brands that are using citizen branding.