Brain Tattoos: Creating Unique Brands That Stick in Your Customers' Minds [Paperback]

Karen Post (Author), Jeffrey H. Gitomer (Author), Michael Tchong (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 10, 2004

"Effective branding depends on the ability to leave a lasting (and positive) impression in the mind of the target audience. Brain Tattoos offers a practical approach -- no complicated theories, marketing jargon, or unnecessary babble -- that lets any business take its brand to the next level. Packed with tools that help readers identify their brand's purpose, personality, promise, and point of difference, Brain Tattoos will help readers: * Develop the courage to break the mold and become truly distinct * Discover ways to enlist customers and others as ""brand ambassadors"" * Grasp their brand's essence * Master brand building on any scale in any industry * Learn how to identify and use the most effective methods of brand communication * Learn how to leverage limited resources creatively Filled with creative ways to maximize market impact, Brain Tattoos is a true ""how-to"" book written with in-the-trenches business and marketing people in mind."

Editorial Reviews

Review

"""Hands-on marketing help from a guru who lives what she preaches!""

-- Seth Godin, author, Free Prize Inside

""This book is brands-on action. Karen Post will show you a new way to make your phone ring with qualified prospects, convert them to sales, and add value to your operation.""

-- Jeffrey Gitomer, author, The Sales Bible

""Karen Post knows branding. From her own business identity -- the Branding Diva -- to her work with companies such as American Express, Bank of America, and Pepsi, Post's insights and experiences are fun and productive, and eminently applicable. The book's questionnaires, tattoo tests, and tool kits are useful tools to help business leaders and innovators rethink their personal and organizational brands and practices. Whether you're an internal Brand Ambassador or an external Brand Warrior, Brain Tattoos will help you improve and increase the impact of the mental imprints made by your business and your work."" -- Heath Row, Editorial and Community Director, FastCompany.com"

Book Description

"Effective branding depends on the ability to leave a lasting (and positive) impression in the mind of the target audience. Brain Tattoos offers a practical approach -- no complicated theories, marketing jargon, or unnecessary babble -- that lets any business take its brand to the next level. Packed with tools that help readers identify their brand’s purpose, personality, promise, and point of difference, Brain Tattoos will help readers:

* Develop the courage to break the mold and become truly distinct

* Discover ways to enlist customers and others as ""brand ambassadors""

* Grasp their brand’s essence

* Master brand building on any scale in any industry

* Learn how to identify and use the most effective methods of brand communication

* Learn how to leverage limited resources creatively

Filled with creative ways to maximize market impact, Brain Tattoos is a true ""how-to"" book written with in-the-trenches business and marketing people in mind."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; 1st edition (December 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814472346
• ISBN-13: 978-0814472347
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #721,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Karen has authored two books, both are available on Amazon. Her latest book is Brand Turnaround: How Brands Gone Bad Returned to Glory . . . and the 7 Game Changers that Made the Difference will be out in late 2011 (McGraw-Hill).

Her first book Brain Tattoos: Creating Unique Brands That Stick in Your Customers' Minds was published in 2004 (AMACOM).

Karen Post is an international speaker, consultant and business authority. Her expertise focuses on branding, entrepreneurial, social media and women's business issues.

Known to many as the "The Branding Diva® ," for over three decades she has been building memorable brands that sell product, advocate causes, create loyalty, and add value.

Since 2000, she has led Brain Tattoo Branding, a firm that provides creative and strategic services to start, grow, and manage brands. Karen is also a sought after speaker, who addresses global audiences, and is proud to have been the first female American speaker to address the Saudi Arabian Airlines national conference in 2011.

Karen started her first business at age 22, and built two successful companies--an award-winning ad agency and a legal communications firm specializing in high-stakes litigation that she led for over twenty years.

Throughout her career, her work has benefited diverse industries, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies including Albemarle, ACNielsen, Choice International, Cox Cable and Media, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America, Xerox, Sara Lee, Pepsi, and Procter & Gamble along with many emerging businesses, trade associations, professional athletes, entertainers, and politicians.

Karen is a regular branding commentator on FOX TV and has been featured in other business and marketing print, broadcast and online media outlets, including FOX, NBC, Bloomberg TV, CBS's Early Show, the New York Times, the New York Post, Financial Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company, Miami Herald, The Boston Globe and NPR.

She's more than an insightful author. Post is on the front line of business and branding as both a leader and a practitioner.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Branding (Work)book, December 12, 2005

By 

Amanda (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brain Tattoos: Creating Unique Brands That Stick in Your Customers' Minds (Paperback)

There are so many books on branding out there that try to explain the concept of branding. Most fail to do so, but instead, baffle the reader with jargon, theorems and charts. This book creates an easy to understand definition of branding. It also provides exercises to help build your brand and great real world examples to prime your branding ideas.

This book is very well written and very readable! Make sure you have a pen and paper to take notes and work on the exercises! This book will be a staple in your business book collection. I still refer to it months after reading it.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Branding is Everything and Everything is Branding, November 16, 2007

By 

David M. Freedman (Chicago area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brain Tattoos: Creating Unique Brands That Stick in Your Customers' Minds (Paperback)

This book has a lot of creative marketing ideas. But throughout most of the book, Karen Post confuses marketing with branding. That is, she treats all of marketing as though it were branding.

In Post's view of the world, everything is branding and branding is everything. You brand your product or service, you brand your organization, and you brand yourself. The latter, your personal brand, she memorably calls "brand moi." You brand yourself not only to advance in your career or to promote your product or service, but to let everyone know (when you introduce yourself at parties, for example) who you are and what you're about.

Good Marketing Tips
If you look at this book as a trove of clever marketing ideas, you'll gain valuable insights and ideas from it. Post offers tips on how to tap into your creativity, conduct market research, promote customer loyalty, brainstorm a product or company name, design a logo, plan sales promotion and publicity events, build a more effective website, and more.

If you really want to learn about branding in the narrow sense, however, this book will only confuse you. The main problem is the lack of a clear definition. In the Introduction she explains (or tries to) that a "brand is a mental imprint." Then she leaps to this definition: "A Brain Tattoo is a stronger brand than the norm, rich with promise, bold with purpose, distinct and prominently inked onto your buyer's cranium." Two paragraphs later she says, "A Brain Tattoo is reality branding," though she never explains what she means by reality branding. Now we get the impression that a brain tattoo is a certain kind of branding, not synonymous with normal branding.

But then, throughout much of the book she uses the two terms synonymously. At the beginning of Chapter One, for example, she says, "A brand, or what I refer to as Brain Tattoo, is a psychological impression of value-based emotions, lodged in the mind of a buyer or prospect."

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive, yet simple, March 15, 2005

By 

Catherine A. Jury - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brain Tattoos: Creating Unique Brands That Stick in Your Customers' Minds (Paperback)

I wasn't sure what to expect when I read this book. The ideas and examples made complete sense. It seems like such a simple concept, but it's amazing how many large corporations miss the point. I plan on implementing many of these concepts into my own company. I have no doubt that the ideas will only benefit my company and myself personally. Thanks for sharing, you have great in-sight.