Product Description

How a company 'positions' a brand is not necessarily how the consumer perceives that brand. Brands allow marketers to add meaning to products and services, but it is consumers who ultimately determine what a brand means. The sources of brand meaning are many and varied, as are the ways in which meanings become attached to brands.

Brand Meaning takes a comprehensive and holistic look at how consumers find and create meaning in brands. It explores the fundamental conscious and unconscious elements that connect people with products and brands. Traditional marketing concepts are questioned, and a new brand meaning framework is put forward. The book lays out new and fertile territory for the understanding of how brands can both assimilate and provide meaning. It will leave readers with a better appreciation of what brand means and what brands mean.

Primarily intended as a supplemental reader for undergraduate, graduate and MBA courses, the book's scope should also make it rewarding and valuable reading for practitioners in the fields of marketing and advertising.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #508056 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

Review

A most thought-full book. Must reading for everyone who studies or manages brands. It is well reasoned and very practical. - Gerald Zaltman, Professor of Marketing, Harvard Business School

A thorough, wide-ranging book, which nicely integrates major theories and concepts of consumer behavior from the distinctive viewpoint of brand meaning. - Bernd Schmitt, Professor of International Business, Columbia Business School, New York.

For any Brand Manager or related brand developer, this book is a fantastic read in which one can readily access and benefit from Batey’s years of intimate experience and profound understanding of what makes a brand resonate. While the first part of the book expounds on the human element behind brands and brand motivation, the latter half shows how to put this depth of study into action…Read it and apply it. It is spot on. –D. Comeau, Marketer (Miami)

Brand Meaning represents an important contribution to the marketing literature on brands. - Allan J. Kimmel, Marketing at ESCP-EAP, European School of Management, Paris.

This is without a doubt one of the best written books on brands for many years. As someone who has worked in the field- on the agency and client sides- for 25 years, I can honestly say I have not encountered anything better. It is written with great clarity of thought and impressive efficiency. At last a book which brings true depth to this area and one that puts its subject matter front center, not its author’s ego. –Michael Collins, brand communication director

Amazing book. Astonishing example of branding knowledge. Mark Batey presents a book that he might have also called: Brand Bible. These 250 pages consist of chapters that cover branding discipline par excellence. There are no unnecessary sentences, no unnecessary details, no unnecessary stories, and no unnecessary anecdotes. Purely scientific knowledge. This book is definitely not for everyone. It is not a typical mass-market branding book that is using easy-to-grasp language. The author exploits the authentic branding ‘vernacular’. This book really stands out. –Bartolomeo Rafael Bialas, a PhD scholar and brand consultant

Customer Reviews

Strong & Insightful
As an account planner with over 25 years' agency experience I have to say that this book feels like an important book on branding - maybe as important as David Aaker's book was in the late 1990s. It begins with a strong theoretical foundation, and includes all the most important classic and emerging research on branding. Batey spends a lot of time exploring the fundamental topic of human motivation and why we seek meaning. He highlights the needs and value systems that drive behavior -- he even has a cool chapter on "the meaning of things" which addresses how objects can come to be endowed with symbolic meaning in the first place.

But the book also has a very practical side - there are chapters on brand meaning in brand strategy (in fact, Batey encourages readers to think of brand management as brand meaning management)and his work on brand extensions, portfolio management and architecture is very applicable to our day-to-day situations as agency people.

I think Batey's greatest contribution to branding theory, though, comes in what he calls "implicit brand meaning" which is different from primary brand meaning - it's the meaning that taps into deep universal truths and cultural values, the meaning that transcends categories and product qualities. Batey calls it the "psychic resonance" of the brand, and includes lots of ideas on how to identify and manage implicit brand meaning.

If the book has a drawback, it comes in the density of the topic. It's chocked full of insights and thoughts. It's less skim-able than it might be, but it sure is underline-able once you get into it. You'll want to read it with pen in hand.

Brand Meaning Applies
Batey's Brand Meaning is indeed an insightful crossover from concept to practice. Having myself spent over 20 years building on the emotional opportunities that potentially exist within consumers' imprint of a brand, it is clear to me that Batey is able to penetrate past the rational existence of brands and to uncover the true " raison d' etre" of many of our favorite brands.

For any Brand Manager or related brand developer, this book is a fantastic read in which one can readily access and benefit from Batey's years of intimate experience and profound understanding of what makes a brand resonate . While the first part of the book expounds on the human element behind brands and brand motivation, the latter half shows how to put this depth of study into action. Batey takes in Brand Strategy and delivers on the evolution of brands in a highly relevant manner for today's marketer. His segment on communication and the protagonistic role your brand can and should take is of particular value and application.

Read it and apply it. It is spot on.

Truly insightful
Whether you work with brands, study them, or are just interested in what constitutes a brand, this book is a must read. It is very well structured, and the earlier chapters, on Human Motivation, Perception and the Meaning of Things, are fascinating as a backdrop to Batey's solid ideas on how meaning gets into and is drawn from products and brands.