UnBranding: 100 Branding Lessons for the Age of Disruption by Alison Stratten and Scott Stratten
Alison Stratten is Writer and Co-creator of Content at UnMarketing. She has co-written four best-selling books – UnMarketing, The Book of Business Awesome/UnAwesome, UnSelling and the marketing book with the greatest title in the English language, QR Codes Kill Kittens: How to Alienate Customers, Dishearten Employees, and Drive Your Business into the Ground
Prior to becoming an author, Alison developed and ran an international maternity lingerie company called Nummies. She writes and speaks about social media, parenting, business and marketing. Her current adventures also include co-hosting the UnPodcast, with the man, the myth, the legend – her husband Scott Stratten.
The Host’s Perspective:
So, what is this age of disruption? The authors explain that technological innovations and increased access to information have transformed the traditional practice of branding. These changes have disrupted all our traditional relationships: how we hire, how we find a job, how we research our purchases, how we buy and how we learn about the world around us.
And they have changed the dynamic between brands and their markets. Our digital age has put a world of information and connections in our hands, and the way we market and are marketed to has changed forever.
Great branding is really easy to explain and really hard for companies to do. Here’s how you do it: be good to your customers, employees and vendors and have a great product and/or service.
In other words, branding is in every part of your business– how and whom you hire is branding, your front line is branding, what your CEO likes on Facebook is branding. Branding isn’t a department or a campaign; in fact, branding isn’t in your hands at all. Your brand belongs to your customers– it’s what they think of when they hear your name and how they tell your story.
The book has 100 chapters – each an entertaining if not occasionally horrifying lesson on how to build or trash the loyalty you’ve built with your brand.
My favorite chapter? It’s Chapter One, entitled “Logos Don’t Matter.” That’s right, logos don’t matter. And they certainly aren’t the be-all and end-all of branding. The authors explain that organizations spend so much time and money on logos, but our brands aren’t in our business hands; they belong to our market. Your brand changes with each interaction–a living, breathing relationship between your organization and the world.
One other really important point made in the book is that human resources is the most powerful branding division in your company. The authors explain that the ethics and practices behind your company’s hiring policies are what constitutes branding.
Branding is not about logos and colors. It’s about being good to your customers, employees and vendors and have a great product and/or service. This book will help you wrap your head around how to approach branding in this disruptive age.
Listen to the Interview:
Show Notes
UnBranding: 100 Branding Lessons for the Age of Disruption by Alison Stratten and Scott Stratten
UnMarketing: Everything Has Changed and Nothing is Different by Alison Stratten and Scott Stratten (Marketing Book Podcast Interview)
Alison Stratten’s Amazon Page (Amazon.com)
Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers by Jay Baer by Jay Baer (Marketing Book Podcast Interview)
Manipurated: How Business Owners Can Fight Fraudulent Online Ratings and Reviews by Daniel Lemin (Marketing Book Podcast Interview)
Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley (Marketing Book Podcast Interview)
H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
Alison Stratten’s Website (UnMarketing.com)
Alison and Scott Stratten’s Podcast (UnMarketing.com)
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