OBD: Obsessive Branding Disorder: The Illusion of Business and the Business of Illusion (Hardcover)

by Lucas Conley (Author)
Key Phrases: obsessive branding disorder, sensory branding, sonic branding, United States, New Orleans, Potty Palooza (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Journalist Conley examines the implications of brand-centric marketing in an incisive investigation that illustrates how defenseless consumers are against advertising—on any given day, they are assaulted by 3,000 to 5,000 ads and branding stratagems that subtly dictate every aspect of their lives. Harnessing scientific innovations, branding has become increasing insidious—whether it is the Xbox audio logo or Southwest Airlines' incorporation of the fasten seatbelt sound in their marketing campaign—consumers are being conditioned to think in brands. Beyond ad creep and product placement in entertainment programming, viral and word of mouth (WOM) marketing now make even personal recommendations suspect. According to Conley, 1% of American children and 7% of mothers are compensated for participating in WOM marketing. Even social policy is being corrupted—the author asserts that public branding initiatives such as post-Katrina New Orleans' allocation of public funds toward refurbishing its Mardi Gras City image rather than addressing its safety issues shifts resources away from problem-solving in favor of perception. Conley's perspective on branding's encroachment into social areas is as alarming as it is stimulating. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"There's nothing more powerful in business than a truly original idea or a new product that kicks butt--innovations that speak for themselves. But most companies have neither original ideas nor exciting products--which is why they rely on increasingly desperate marketing tactics to attract attention. Lucas Conley offers a stinging and hilarious take on a world in which brands have gotten out of hand. Business is simply too important for us to put up with the scourge of obsessive branding disorder. This book is the cure for what ails us." -- William Taylor, founding editor of Fast Company Magazine and coauthor of Mavericks at Work

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs (June 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586484680
• ISBN-13: 978-1586484682
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #194,919 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a very talented Author doing his thing, June 18, 2008

By	R. Law "textbookneed" (Brooklyn) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Conley has done well in providing overdue business and cultural criticism for our quick fix, near-sighted economy. He cleverly points out that, over the last decade, business has become obsessed with branding their products with imagery, lifestyles, and experiences in an effort to fool consumers into loyalty and irrational buying habits. This obsession has sacrificed a company's attention to innovation and for a product's quality improvement.

To sell your product, it isn't about making something useful or effective anymore. Companies are convinced that the storylines, ideology, and the lifestyle they invent for their product will do the selling. If these methods become ineffective, the company ignores the need to improve the product or create something more advanced as it's far easier to just "rebrand" the lifestyle and the experiences that the product is supposed to bring you. All this is done in an attempt to overwhelm emotion and discourage reason.

Conley has framed a vibrant discourse for the zero-sum game playing out between branding and innovation, emotion versus reason, and the quick fix versus long-term solutions. He thoroughly outlines the branding disorder by providing plenty of convincing examples from the business world of Proctor Gamble to the cityscapes of New Orleans and Cincinnati. A persuasive criticism develops as we find out that it's not just business that loses but the consumer and the public at large as well.

The book encourages further thought and discussion as it branches into complicated issues including the nature of buying and selling, globalization, and our "just saying it makes it true" culture. A must read for the business tycoon or just the economic well-wisher, reading the book produces an immediate 'brand' new awareness of the ads and economy around us.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Conley's little book on the use and abuse of branding to sell products and services., July 4, 2008

By	Jeff Lippincott "www.Jlippin.com" (Princeton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This was a great book. It was short (only 200 pages), but the type was small and the margins were reasonable. It's an investigative piece. The author is not a marketing expert or a writer trying to promote a marketing firm or whatever. This is a simple book that explores the status of marketing today. It questions whether the US culture has become obsessed with brands rather than quality products and new improved products.

The author says at some point that he was thoroughly amused by the extreme examples of branding he saw. And he believes the world is cheapened when EVERYONE sees it with a marketer's eye. I agree. But this book is good because it points out that branding is used AND ABUSED as a tool to sell goods and services today. A lot more use and a lot less abuse would be good!

This book informs us that successful marketers today create loyal customers who are lazy minded and don't think much before they buy. They just stick to the brand that they have learned to trust and believe in. Once a company creates a successful brand, then they milk it for all it's worth.

This book has an introduction and 9 chapters. Examine the Search Inside material provided by Amazon to see the chapter titles. I thought the book was written well and well outlined. 5 stars!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why DID you buy that? , July 5, 2008

By	Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

I had to chuckle at the title of this book "Obsessive Branding Disorder." This sounds like the latest mental disease to make the rounds of television talk shows, but the author is pointing up a marketing "disease" in business. In the absence of an original idea of worth, in a world awash with me-too products, marketing tries desperately to grab a few milliseconds of our attention to influence our buying decisions. Does it work?

In the case of youths, certainly it does. For someone my age (who had to sew her own wardrobe for school), the idea that the "wrong" shoes, jacket, jeans would lead to social ostracism in high school (as opposed to honestly getting there by being a nerd) is something nightmarish to me. But marketeers springboard off that desperate herding instinct of kids not to be different (so as not to be singled out) and to belong by engineering marketing efforts using blogging, Youtube and word of mouth. Since word of mouth is one of the cheapest and most powerful means of generating sales, marketing efforts have been concentrating on harnessing the power of multitudes of advocates. Even though word of mouth is difficult to control marketeers have been trying to seed the population and generate buzz by free samples, small payments and other inducements. That's just one type of branding strategy.

The author gives example after example of how brand placement, a new strategy in marketing, is used by companies in place of innovation and the risky business of introducing a new product. He also discusses the extremes of brand loyalty (theft and mugging over popular brands of clothing) to branding campaigns for entire cities, to promote tourism. He discusses product placement "creep", where product logos appear on stadiums, in films and other unexpected places, in order to seep into the unconscious and sway your opinion.

There is no doubt that marketing "noise" (the din of similar products competing for attention in this media-saturated world) is a huge problem for marketing. Any surface upon which your eye dwells for more than a second is a place to put an ad (example, the tray table in airplane seats and the handle of a gas pump.) The author exhorts us to avoid being herded into brand loyalties that offer no real benefit or differential by being aware of marketing ploys, by avoiding "loyalty beyond reason" and by fighting what is in many cases, an illusion. This is a short but excellent book to make you aware of tricks being played on you to extract your money from your pocket unwittingly for diminishing value, for paying a premium for absolutely nothing, not a promise of superior quality or performance or any benefit beyond what a similar product could provide to you. Excellent, fascinating reading. I really recommend you read this.