3 out of 4 stars
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Supposing Mr. Cadbury had been a brewer and Mr. Guinness a confectioner, would we today be drinking Cadbury stout and eating Guinness chocolate? How successful would Kodak be at present, had it not feared to bring digital photography to the market? Whenever you encounter the term ‘think outside the box,’ do you ever wonder what this box is and why it is assumed that you are inside of it? Did you know that one can actually learn to be creative, innovative and resilient? And, are you aware of the entrepreneur’s Achilles heel? In Brand Real, Vasken Kalayjian passionately delves into exploring the scenarios outlined above and many others.
Brand Real focuses on developing a brand that provides customers with real value, as well as building the kind of flexible organization with a strong values-based culture that can deliver on the brand’s promise. This non-fiction book upholds the principle that successful brands must be built on reality: products and services that deliver real value to customers and ways of doing business that reflect both the personal values of the entrepreneur and the values of the enterprise and its people. In a variety of topics aimed at equipping startup entrepreneurs for success, Kalayjian provides an in-depth account of skillful branding, in conjunction with developing an effective branding identity. The book has an ultimate outcome of assisting the entrepreneur to distill the essence of who he/she is and what he/she offers into a memorable, evocative and convincing set of names, symbols, and taglines that convey key benefits, differentiates the enterprise from the competition and communicates positive feeling. It also empowers the entrepreneur to assemble the team and organization that will effectively drive and sustain the brand’s success. In addition, techniques for cultivating realistic optimism to help the entrepreneur persevere in the face of adversity, together with deep insights from experts in various specialties are shared throughout the book. The cherry on top is the provision of templates and crucial creation-details of vital tools contained in the appendices. These tools, created by experts in the relevant areas, are an invaluable resource for any entrepreneur. The tools include business and marketing plans, use of various types of social media in marketing, inbound marketing, legal issues, and the creative brief.
Written in a formal style, the book is educative, engaging and articulate. Each chapter ends with a summary of key highlights and exercises aimed at helping the reader implement principles discussed in the chapter. Thanks to his thirty-year extensive branding career and engagement with Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, not-for-profit organizations, and governments, Vasken Kalayjian leaves no stone unturned when it comes to ‘walking the walk’ of building the successful brand. He does not shy away from discussing the mistake of a known brand when making a point. He explains the benefits of values and also provides a non-exhaustive list of values. Not only does he encourage one to be resilient in the face of failure, but he also goes a step further to disclose how one can cultivate this resilience!
I had an exciting tuition-free learning adventure with Brand Real! Did you know that a word can sound large or small, strong or weak, even light or dark? Did you also know that brand names containing sounds called plosives are historically more successful? It was fun discovering how brand names and color complement brand promises, the character traits and key qualifications needed in a startup team and the place of common sense as opposed to abstract expert minds. Moreover, I wasn't disoriented by jargon because the book has a glossary that provides definitions of the special terms related to branding and graphic design!Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
—Jim Horning, American computer scientist
Three things, however, dampened my reading experience of this book. First, due to the nature of its content, wordy and technical discourses in some parts of the book couldn’t be avoided. This was made worse by the continuous flow of the book from the first chapter to last, as is common in novels. Dividing the book into three sections, namely The Brand, The Team/Organization, and Entrepreneurial Character Development would have provided two benefits. These are mental breaks and improved ease of reference. Secondly, though the use of expert advice was by and large very beneficial, there were instances when some expert advice deflated the ‘can do’ attitude the book had already nurtured in the preceding sections. I suspect this was done in a bid to market the experts’ firms. Check this out:
Finally, I found one of the ways proposed for cultivating a certain entrepreneurial trait unrealistic, escapist or the proverbial ‘ostrich hiding its head in the sand!' Read the book to find out if you will agree with me on this one! Though the book appears professionally edited, it still has a few errors. These are mostly awkward sentences and missing words. Fortunately the errors do not interfere with the flow of the content.The only reliable way to find good names that are catchy, good for search engines, and easily marketable, is to turn to the professionals and hire a branding agency with a proven record of success.
Because of the issues above, I rate Brand Real 3 out of 4 stars. I do not hesitate to recommend it to business students, and to entrepreneurs - both in reality and at heart! Allow me to reiterate that though Brand Real is designed as a handbook for startup entrepreneurs, established enterprises can also up their success and competitive advantage by making reference to it. ‘Nonbusiness’ oriented individuals also stand to gain from learning how to cultivate some good character traits like optimism and resilience. I therefore finally recommend the book to any person wishing to learn how to spot that silver lining on every cloud, and how to bounce back from drawbacks! As Kalayjian put it, no one sets out to fail. But if you do, allow yourself a period of time to recover and then, bounce back!
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Brand Real
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