Marketing Aesthetics: The Strategic Management of Brands, Identity and Image (Hardcover)

~ Alex Simonson (Author), Bernd H. Schmitt (Author) "Aesthetics. From the moment we wake up to the end of each working day we are dazzled by what we see, hear, taste, smell, and..." (more)
Key Phrases: overall customer impression, various identity elements, other identity elements, New York, United States, Four Seasons (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

An original! That term is used far too much. In this (rare) case, it is fully merited. Schmitt and Simonson have written a sophisticated, readable masterpiece that reinvents the practice of marketing. And the timing--a marketplace glutted with look-alikes--could not be better. Small business or large, read this book ... NOW, and act ... NOW. -- Tom Peters, author of The Pursuit Of Wow!

David A. Aaker author of Managing Brand Equity and Building Strong Brands Visual imagery has been the neglected element of branding, usually treated in an ad hoc manner. Thanks to this pathbreaking book, we now have a more scientific knowledge of how visual imagery works to build strong brands and how it can be actively managed. -- Review

Review

Clay S. Timon

Chairman, President and CEO, Landor Associates

This seminal book on the aesthetics of brands, identity, and image reveals through superb real-world examples how these tools can be marketed -- and managed for great profit.

Peter Laundy

Practice Leader, Corporate and Brand Identity, Doblin Group

Schmitt and Simonson cut fog into cubes for executives unschooled in aesthetics and provide tools to help them present their companies to the greatest advantage.

Sal Randazzo

Worldwide Strategic Planning Director, McCann-Erickson Worldwide, and author of The Mythmakers

A powerful new perspective which explains how marketers can gain a competitive advantage in the new psychological arena, by creating and cultivating "a unique corporate aesthetic."

Marc Gobe

President, CEO, and Executive Creative Director, Desgrippes Gobe and Associates

Brings the underestimated sensory experience to the customer-brand relationship, helping corporations create a greater cohesive presence for the company and its products.

David A. Aaker

author of Managing Brand Equity and Building Strong Brands

Visual imagery has been the neglected element of branding, usually treated in an ad hoc manner. Thanks to this pathbreaking book, we now have a more scientific knowledge of how visual imagery works to build strong brands and how it can be actively managed. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (August 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684826550
• ISBN-13: 978-0684826554
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #407,726 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Sensible Perspective, January 6, 2000

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The authors assert that, within a marketing context, a company must find "a powerful point of differentiation through the use of aesthetics to create positive overall customer impressions that depict the multifaceted personality of the company or brand." How? The book explains how. Substantial attention is devoted to the branding phase during which a symbol is strategically created, conveys a positioning, provides tangible value, and is most effectively managed on a daily basis. "Drivers" of identity are also explained as is the procedure for cross-functional coordination and other components of what should be a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective marketing program.

During the course of Marketing Aesthetics, the authors examine a number of different products for which various companies achieve "a powerful point of (aesthetics as a strategic tool); Lucent Technologies and Continental Airlines (creating identity and image through aesthetics); IBM (corporate and brand expressions); Starbucks and Gillette (styles); Pepperidge Farm Cookies (themes); The Four Seasons (overall customer impressions); LEGO and Bosch (comprehensive identity management); Godiva and Nike (retail spaces and environments); and Volkswagen, Netscape, and Yahoo! (corporate and brand identity on the Internet). Throughout Marketing Aesthetics, the focus is on real-world corporate experience which the authors carefully examine in support of their assertion that "Business processes do not provide value to customers. Core competencies do not. Even brands per se do not. Value is provided only by satisfying needs." Moreover, "In a world in which most consumers have their basic needs satisfied, value is easily provided by satisfying customers' experiential needs -- their aesthetic needs."

Marketing Aesthetics thus explains the most effective strategies for achieving both brand and identity objectives. Those who derive benefit from this book are urged to read the more recently published Experiential Marketing in which Schmitt develops even further ideas introduced in Marketing Aesthetics.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tour de Force that puts a new visual spin on Marketing, May 7, 1999

By A Customer

Schmitt and Simonson's book deserves to be read by anyone -- and I mean anyone -- who has a hand in how products are marketed. Dispensing with tired formulas and such arcana as The Four Ps, Schmitt & Simonson forge nothing less than an entirely novel approach to WHY brands mean what they do, what equity really is.

Unlike so many other academics cobbling together journal articles and anecdotes, Schmitt & Simonson's carefully-selected case studies and lapidarian, sparkling prose lay bare the fundamentals of what marketing managers really need to know about how not just to manage their brands, but to nurture them, shepherd them, keep them in the public eye and consciousness.

Having read and taught from nearly every other book in this area, this is simply one of the very best business books to have appeared this decade, and certainly the most original

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but where are the metrics? Hard definitions?, July 26, 2001

By	Nowhereman "mediaddict" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

The other reviews have done a fine job of outlining the many positive points for this book. It certainly does do a wonderful job of attempting to move the practice of 'brand equity' forward. Even if you don't agree with many of the ideas in the book, it's a valuable read. But I *do* have two main problems with the piece.

First, by the end of the book, can anyone give a decent, concise definition of what exactly aesthetics is? Of course, it's a difficult question because much of aesthetics lies in the overall whole impression created by a brand, rather than just on packaging, advertisements, and sensory data. But one major problem I had was by about halfway through the book, 'aesthetics' had come to mean just about anything. Marketing communications? Aesthetics. Packaging? Aesthetics. All sensory information given off by a product? Aesthetics. The environment the product is sold or consumed in? Aesthetics. With a definition this loose, of *course* it's critical for marketers to pay attention to aesthetics, and of course they already do to a large degree. While the emphasis of seeing all these things as part of an interrelated whole is an admirable goal, this leads to my second problem.

Second, since aesthetics is such a 'squishy/stretchy' concept, how on earth are you supposed to measure it, or know when youre doing a great job at managing it? The scenarios where a manager would make one aesthetic change, and then see quantifiable results seems rare. It would strike me as more common that aesthetic changes go hand-in-hand with strategy re-assesments and realignments.

Still, even with my general reservations on the book, I can reccomend it as one of the better practicioner-focused books on branding and brand identity to come out in recent years.