{"id":4118,"date":"2014-09-28T10:26:07","date_gmt":"2014-09-28T08:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/?p=4118"},"modified":"2014-09-28T17:01:27","modified_gmt":"2014-09-28T15:01:27","slug":"the-first-unified-theory-of-branding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/archives\/4118","title":{"rendered":"The first unified theory of&nbsp;branding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a lot of talk in the business, marketing, and communications world about branding, strategy, and design but not always (well, most of time) in the same breath. There seems to be rift between the right and left side of the brain so it was a such a surprise to find a book that bridges this gap between strategy and design.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/brandgap.jpg\" alt=\"brandgap\" width=\"647\" height=\"503\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4121\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/brandgap.jpg 647w, https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/brandgap-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 647px) 100vw, 647px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier, from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.liquidagency.com\" title=\"Liquid Agency\">Liquid Agency<\/a>, is not only a quick read, but a deeply insightful book presenting the first unified theory of branding &#8211; a set of five disciplines to help companies bridge the gap between brand strategy and execution. There are plenty of powerful statements Neumeier sets out from the start to the end of the book. It seems that he wanted to make it perfectly clear that you can&#8217;t have strategy without design, communication without dialogue, and brands without focus. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/leftright.jpg\" alt=\"leftright\" width=\"647\" height=\"503\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4123\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/leftright.jpg 647w, https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/leftright-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 647px) 100vw, 647px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The five disciplines of branding<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Differentiate<\/li>\n<li>Collaborate<\/li>\n<li>Innovate <\/li>\n<li>Validate<\/li>\n<li>Cultivate<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Think you know what your business is all about and think you have a great marketing strategy? Try to find unambiguous answers to these three little questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Who are you?<\/li>\n<li>What do you do?<\/li>\n<li>Why does it matter?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/brandis.jpg\" alt=\"brandis\" width=\"647\" height=\"502\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4122\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/brandis.jpg 647w, https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/brandis-300x232.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 647px) 100vw, 647px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Working in visual communication, I found it also to be a great example of also linking business content (normally boring and stale) with visually stimulating typography, graphics, and layout. It actually makes you want to read this book, which is categorized as &#8220;marketing and management&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Your time is valuable, so my first goal is to give you a book you can finish in a short plane ride. My second goal is to give you powerful principles that will last a career.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/oldcom.jpg\" alt=\"oldcom\" width=\"648\" height=\"504\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4125\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/oldcom.jpg 648w, https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/oldcom-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If anyone works in communication, branding, or strategy, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.peachpit.com\/store\/brand-gap-revised-edition-9780321348104\" title=\"The Brand Gap\">this book<\/a> should be the first thing to be read. In addition to the book, you can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.peachpit.com\/content\/images\/0321348109\/goodies\/The_Brand_Gap.pdf\" title=\"PDF presentation of the ideas found in The Brand Gap\">download for free a PDF<\/a> that summarizes the concepts and ideas from The Brand Gap in a nice visual storytelling presentation &#8211; the images from this post are from the presentation.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/newcom.jpg\" alt=\"newcom\" width=\"648\" height=\"504\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4124\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/newcom.jpg 648w, https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/newcom-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a lot of talk in the business, marketing, and communications world about branding, strategy, and design but not always (well, most of time) in the same breath. There seems to be rift between the right and left side of the brain so it was a such a surprise to find a book that bridges &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/archives\/4118\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The first unified theory of&nbsp;branding<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[269],"tags":[118,138,101,23,26,81,100],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4118"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4129,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118\/revisions\/4129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}