Introduction

Congratulations! You’re about to take control of your brand.

If you’re thinking, “I don’t even have a brand,” then this book is definitely for you. It’s also for anyone who wants to build a better brand, repair a broken brand, extend the power of a valuable brand, or start from scratch and create a brand-new brand.

Branding is a red-hot topic (pardon the pun) that keeps increasing in importance for good reason: Brands pave the way for marketing success.

When people hear your organization’s name — or your personal name, in the case of personal brands — thoughts pop up that influence what they believe and how they buy. Those thoughts, held in the minds of others, are the basis of your brand. They may be the result of direct associations with you or your organization, but chances are even greater that they’re the result of web searches, online reviews, word-of-mouth comments, or other impressions that you’re making even when you’re nowhere in sight.

This book is all about defining the vision and idea of your desired brand image and then making sure that the impressions you’re making lead to the positive set of thoughts you want people to have, trust, and believe about who you are and what you stand for.

Count on this book to guide you through the branding process and to lead you to a better, stronger brand that can compete successfully in the big, branded world around you.

About This Book

When the publisher For Dummies books, one of the world’s most recognized book brands, first asked us to write a book on branding, we knew we were looking at a tall order and sky-high standards to live up to. Since the original edition of this book was published in 2006, Branding For Dummies has been read by thousands upon thousands of readers, translated into multiple languages, and excerpted in hundreds of other books and sites. Now, eight years later, we’re happy to introduce this heavily updated second edition.

Branding For Dummies, 2nd Edition, is still the only plain English, do-it-yourself guide to branding we’ve seen, and we’ve looked high and low. What’s changed is that this second edition includes new chapters on personal branding and one-person business brands, digital communications, and social media, which has emerged at rapid speed to become today’s all-important brand-communication channel. Plus nearly every page of this book has been brought up-to-date with current advice, examples, and step-by-step instructions to follow.

As with all For Dummies books, this one can be used as a reference, so you can jump around and still make sense of the information, even if you haven’t read all the chapters that precede it. Sidebars, the shaded boxes of text, cover bonus content that’s interesting but not essential, so you can skip them if you’re in a hurry.

Here’s our pledge: You don’t need an MBA or even a marketing or business background to make sense of this book. All you need is an interest in the topic of branding and a curiosity about what it is and how to do it. We take care of the rest.

You probably already know that branding works. This book shows you how to make it work for you.

Foolish Assumptions

First things first: Anyone smart enough to want to know more about branding is no fool. Thanks for entrusting us with your interest. We’ve done back flips to make sure that this book includes everything you need to know about branding, all presented with easy-to-understand translations for every technical term.

In writing this book, we made a few assumptions about you and the many others we hope will use this book.

• You’re not a marketing professional — or if you are, you’re looking for a branding refresher course for yourself or to share with those you work with. To make this book useful to every reader, we gear our explanations and advice to those who are charting new territory as they enter the branding arena.
• You’re interested in building or strengthening a brand — for your company, for a nonprofit organization, for your new business, for a campaign (fundraising, political, social, you name it …), or for yourself by making your name into a respected resource, a local personality, or a small-scale celebrity. Regardless of your branding objective, we’re guessing that you’re not expecting to become the next Nike or Apple, but we think it’s a safe bet that you’d like to acquire some of their branding strength. Who wouldn’t!
• You’re willing to invest effort to achieve the returns that result from a good branding program. To help, we include worksheets, charts, and sets of how-to instructions to guide the research, planning, positioning, design, implementation, and management involved in fueling your success with the power of a great brand.

Icons Used in This Book

This book wouldn’t live up to the For Dummies brand promise without the symbols that sit in the outer margin alerting you to valuable information and advice. Watch for these icons:

The bull’s-eye marks tried-and-true approaches that will save you time, money, and trouble as you build your branding program.

It’s one thing to read advice and steps to follow. It’s a whole other thing to read a true story of how an actual business tackled an issue topic successfully. This icon flags great branding examples and lessons.

When there’s a danger to avoid or just a bad idea to steer clear of, this icon sits in the margin like a flashing yellow light.

This icon points out branding’s golden rules. Watch for them throughout the book.

Beyond the Book

In addition to what you’ll find in this book’s 300-plus pages, you can also access the Branding For Dummies Cheat Sheet at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/branding. It contains at-a-glance guidance and additional information you can put to work as you develop your brand and branding program.

Plus, we’ve posted some more useful material at www.dummies.com/extras/branding, including a bonus Part of Tens list featuring traits common to the world’s greatest global brands and articles that summarize important and easy-to-reference advice from each of the parts in this book.

Where to Go from Here

True to the For Dummies format, you can start this book on any page. Every portion of the book is a self-standing component, which means that you don’t have to read sequentially from cover-to-cover to make sense of the content. (If you have time and the inclination to read every word on every page, start-to-finish, however, we’d love nothing more!)

If you’re new to the field of branding, count on Chapter 1 for a good overview of the contents of the entire book as well as a crash-course on the topic, language, and process of branding. If you’re in a hurry because you’re facing a crucial branding issue or wrestling with a branding problem, the table of contents or index guides you straight to the advice you need. If you already have a branding program but want to polish the luster of your brand or even do some rapid brand repair, skip to Parts IV and V.

For now, get started by using this book from start-to-finish or by cherry-picking the contents. So long as you end up with a clear brand identity that you project consistently in your market, your approach will have worked. So turn the page — and start branding!