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Many marketers spend their days continually reducing brand positioning into single sentences to answer questions such as 'What is the brand message?' or 'What is the USP?' This tendency to perpetually condense and simplify is a carry-over from a long-gone era when products and services remained static, and changes in platforms happened much more slowly. Today, however, the reality is that brands are infinitely more complex, and span territories, consumer groups and categories. Therefore, to boil a branding message down into a single sentence or USP severely limits a brand's potential scope. After all, a brand is like a person, and a person could never be accurately described in a single sentence.
The Marketing Complex examines the current obsession with over-simplification, and fearlessly challenges marketers to consider whether they are blurring the line between simplifying and simplistic. By exploring the origins and appeal of simplification through some of the best-known literature, the book conclusively proves that endless simplification actually only serves to limit a brand's appeal. By presenting a visionary new model, supported by examples, tools and expertly explained techniques, The Marketing Complex will enable marketers to recognise the important role that depth and multiplicity play in communicating a brand message, and to boldly embrace complexity when crafting their brands.
List of contents
Section - 00: Introduction; Section - 01: The siren call of simplicity; Section - 02: A new brandscape; Section - 03: An abdication of responsibility; Section - 04: Proposition and positioning, marketing and branding; Section - 05: The need to manage multiplicity; Section - 06: A framework for managing multiplicity; Section - 07: The 3Ps of brand philosophy: Purpose, principles and personality; Section - 08: Going to market: Brand propositions; Section - 09: A new marketing mindset; Section - 10: Keeping it as simple as possible. but not any simpler; Section - 11: What's next?;
About the author
Giles Lury is a Director of leading brand consultancy The Value Engineers and leading author on marketing. He has worked in advertising, market research, packaging design, corporate identity and brand consultancy. His specialist subjects are brand positioning, brand architecture, and innovation. During his career, he has won two IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards and a gold award at the AMSO Research Effectiveness Awards. He is a regular contributor to the marketing press, and he blogs for The Marketing Society.
