3 out of 4 stars
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Brand Real is designed to be a guide on branding and marketing techniques for entrepreneurs. However it’s also incredibly interesting for anyone who wants to learn more about marketing. The major focus is on branding and the key message throughout is to be authentic and true to your brand. This is because making clever marketing slogans or catch phrases is no longer enough in a world full of instant connections. I am a university student studying marketing so I found this book really relevant to my studies, which made it even easier to read.
It covers a wide range of topics from what branding is to different strategies your brand can implement to some self-help tips. My favourite part was about the branding implementation and what is more likely to be successful. There were some interesting theories about the different voices companies use to get their messages across. Some models, such as a SWOT analysis, I had come across before but the book helped me expand my knowledge of them, and there were other theories such as the one on brand architecture that I knew nothing about so the book really helped me grow my marketing knowledge. Another significant part of the book that stands out is the bit on the importance of building a flexible organisation. It made it obvious that if companies are too afraid to fail or to innovate they will be left behind because the world moves so quickly, which sounds obvious now that I say it but I’d never thought about it too much before.
I also felt like it was appropriate for Kalayjian to be talking about this because of his experience in marketing. He has previously worked with Fortune 500 companies, start-ups and NGOs, which has provided him with an immense amount of knowledge in the field. As well as advice from himself, there were chapters from specialists in some of the more important fields (such as logo artwork experts or graphic designers) which made the input even more valuable.
Each chapter ended with a summary and some thought provoking questions about the topics covered. This was helpful and made it more engaging but also reminded be of a school textbook. Perhaps this fits well with it’s formal tone and educational subject matter.
My biggest issues with this book were the emotional self-help chapters. Whilst I enjoyed all the sections on branding, I felt the self-help sections added nothing and they were written in a slightly patronising tone, which was extremely off putting.
I would recommend Brand Real to any entrepreneurs because branding is essential to every company but I would mention that the self-help chapters were less useful to me personally. There is also a lot of information contained in this book and it’s a serious read: not a before bed kind of book. You need to concentrate when reading. Therefore I would rate this book 3 out of 4 stars.
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Brand Real
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