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"Marketing's role is to create a brand out of the product and transform it into a symbol. By translating the product's tangible and intangible benefits into symbolic meaning, images, and feelings, marketers create a brand bridge that is loved and wanted, one that is willingly traversed to get to "the other side. " The meanings, images, andfeelings that advertising attaches to branded products create the attractive (or preferably irresistible) symbolic identity as experienced by consumers. This is the brand bridge. "
What Makes a Great Brand Great? It's the Bridge!
-Langdon Morris
Branding
What are the most valuable brands in the world, and what are they worth? According to Forbes, the world's 100 most valuable brands have a collective value of $2.3 trillion, of which the top five, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook, are worth a combined $682 billion. Apple is the most valuable of all, at $205 billion. These are big, gigantic numbers, and they say a lot about the importance of branding and brand building. Which is timely for us, because our latest book has just been released and it's all about brands and branding.
Written by Jerome Conlon, one of the world's most respected branding gurus, and co-authored by InnovationLabs' Langdon Morris, the book goes into unprecedented detail about two of the world's most iconic brands, Nike and Starbucks, and tells never-beforebeen-told stories of how they ascended to the brand pantheon. How is Jerome qualified to write about those brands? Simple. He was there on the front lines, helping build both brands, and telling the story in super detail in this book. During his years at Nike, the company grew from $400 million in annual sales to more than $6 billion, and he tells the engrossing story of the Air Jordan phenomenon, and of the origins of the "Just Do It" advertising campaign, which helped propel the company to new and greater heights.
An Excerpt
Each brand strives to be unique, and thus as there are many different kinds of companies, there are many different kinds of brands. At the highest level, though, a brand is one thing and one thing only - an overriding expectation that over time takes on a basic set of product or service performance associations.
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