Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Is there a new way to approach branding?


Today the interns had the opportunity to present our book reports to the agency. Each book seemed extremely appropriate and interesting – and all very different from one another.

My book was Branding Only Works on Cattle by Jonathan Salem Baskin. It's about how branding doesn’t work.

You can probably see why I was a little nervous to present my book to a branding agency. But, I figured I was assigned this book to present an opposite viewpoint in order to evaluate the future of the advertising industry.

Baskin makes it clear to his audience that he believes traditional branding techniques are a waste of time and money, and will not bring success, consumers or sales anytime soon – try telling that to your hopeful client!

This book does illustrate how every industry is constantly evolving. And whether or not Baskin's thinking is correct, he does present some interesting ideas. He claims that companies and/or agencies need to start looking at their brands, their techniques and the world in a new way. They need to begin to understand that consumers are bored and are done paying attention to traditional branding practices.

Through this book report assignment, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of the world of branding. Even though it was only Baskin’s opinion that I was attempting to understand, I was able to get a glimpse of where the industry may be heading.

As this is my last blog entry, I will end by saying that I will leave this internship with an extremely well-rounded experience. I truly believe that any experience is good experience. Projects come and projects go, but at the end of the day, what you add to the company, and what you take from your experience are what matter the most.

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