BRANDING FOR DUMMIES

Why do consumers pay a premium for a Dell or Hewlett-Packard laptop, when they could get a generic machine with similar features for a lower price? The answer lies in the power of branding. A brand is not just a logo. It is the image your company creates of itself, from your advertising look to your customer interaction style. It makes a promise for your business, and that promise becomes the sticking point for customer loyalty. And that loyalty and trust is why, so to speak, your laptops sell and your competitors’ don’t.
Whatever your business is, whether it’s large or small, global or local, Branding For Dummies gives you the nuts and bolts know-how to create, improve, or maintain a brand. This plain-English guide will help you brand everything from products to services to individuals. It gives you step-by-step advice on assembling a top-notch branding team, positioning your brand, handling advertising and promotion, avoiding blunders, and keeping your brand viable, visible, and healthy. You’ll get familiar with branding essentials like:
Defining your company’s identity
Developing logos and taglines
Launching your brand marketing plan
Managing and protecting your brand
Fixing a broken brand
Making customers loyal brand champions
Filled with easy-to-navigate icons, charts, figures, top ten lists, and humor, Branding For Dummies is the straight-up, jargon-free resource for making your brand stand out from the pack—and for positioning your business to reap the ensuing rewards.

Bill Chiaravalle and Barbara Findlay Schenck each have more than 20 years of experience helping well-known organizations shape their branding and marketing plans.

Introduction.
Part I: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Branding.
Chapter 1: Branding ABCs.
Chapter 2: When and How to Brand.
Chapter 3: Heating Up Your Branding Iron.
Part II: Building a Brand, Step-by-Step.
Chapter 4: Finding a Niche You Can Fill: Researching Your Market.
Chapter 5: Filling Your Niche: Positioning Your Brand.
Chapter 6: Putting Your Brand into Words.
Chapter 7: Naming Your Brand.
Chapter 8: Designing Your Logo and Tagline.
Part III: Launching Your New Brand.
Chapter 9: Countdown to Takeoff: Planning Your Brand Launch.
Chapter 10: Getting the Word Out with Public Relations.
Chapter 11: Advertising and Promoting Your Brand.
Chapter 12: Sending Your Brand into Cyberspace.
Part IV: The Care and Feeding of Your Brand.
Chapter 13: Suiting Up a Team of Brand Champions.
Chapter 14: Getting Customers to Pledge Allegiance to Your Brand.
Chapter 15: Valuing Your Brand.
Chapter 16: Leveraging Brand Value with Brand Extensions and Licensing.
Chapter 17: Revitalizing Your Brand.
Part V: Protecting Your Brand.
Chapter 18: Defending Your Brand.
Chapter 19: Taking Action When Bad Things Happen to Good Brands.
Part VI: The Part of Tens.
Chapter 20: Ten Truths about Branding.
Chapter 21: Ten Branding Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.
Chapter 22: Ten Traits of the World’s Most Valuable Brands.
Appendix: Resources for Brand Managers.
Index.