Customer Reviews

Brandscapes: Architecture in the Experience Economy

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The topic of this book is extremely entertaining. As any reader can
imagine from the title, it's about landscapes as byproduct of branding.
Well known recent projects in the US (few Europe) by star architects are
analyzed in the context of city branding, museum branding, and corporate
branding.

Branding has been out there for long time, but what's particularly
interesting in recent phenomena (gist of this book) is that the
architecture (or formation of its process) is used as a vehicle to
branding. Klingmann was able to pull together diverse discipline groups
and abundant resources to make that claim.

Another major voice in the book is about "Experience Economy." Basically,
how product developers and brand strategists have evolved their nature of
products and point of advertisement into consumer based satisfaction.
That in mind, Klingmann pulls together solid evidence of the
architectural role.

Good books tend to be either extremely informative or imaginative.
Reading the book, I had pleasure of doing the latter. Branding, in my
mind, at the basic level comes down to "art of seduction" or "art of
persuasion", dealing the issues of contemporaneity. There are probably
gazillion different veils to seduce, Klingmann's book does not focus on
one particular way of seducing. The real strength of the book, hence is,
its open-endedness to imagination.

The mall where you shop, the coffee shop where you take your breaks, the museum that you visit - wherever you go, you are walking through a "brandscape," or branded world. Anna Klingmann describes this aesthetic experience in her eye-opening study of branding in all its forms, with a special focus on architecture. Offering a unique perspective, Klingmann breaks down the strategy behind well-known brands such as Disney, Apple and Starbucks. She also parses the experiences that brandmakers create everywhere from cruise ships to casinos to that "urban entertainment district" where you might have suffered your latest attack of brand overload. Klingmann's text meanders at times, yet her trenchant analysis is rewarding. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone seeking a perceptive analysis of branding strategies - with an unusual recognition of how architecture and landmarks serve to generate a brand image.