Wally Olins, On brand. London, Thames and Hudson, 2003. With bibl., index. ISBN 0-500-51145-4
For everyone in marketing, advertising, design and business, and everyone who wants to understand how the world works in the early twenty-first century, this is one of those radical and challenging book books that breaks the mould. Wally Olins draws on a lifetime’s marketing experience to explain why it is time to throw the old mission statements away, what happens when a brand goes global, when we shouldn’t automatically assume that the customer comes first and how it might be good news that branding is set to spread even further. Always wise, questioning and iconoclastic, Wally Olins takes us to the heart of the matter: our crucial neglect of the way in which consumer decisions about brands are as emotional as all the other important decisions in our lives. Above all, he provides a positive rejoinder to the new orthodoxies of the ‘No Logo’ critics of branding by showing how they confuse their views about brands with their views about capitalism. As Olins argues, brands are no longer just about corporations, their products and services. In the era of globalization, branding the nation has ceased to be a matter of nationalistic pride, rather a vital tool of economic survival. In fact, all the significant institutions in our lives – the towns, cities, sports teams, museums, consumer groups and charities – are given strength, identity, a defining role and a satisfying cohesion via branding, one of the most significant social – as well as business – developments of modern times.
