Spotting an exceptional brand is easy, but building an exceptional brand is one of the most overwhelming and elusive challenges organizations face. Many business leaders mistakenly believe that brand-building superstars like Apple, Lululemon, Zappos, and Nike achieved their successes as a result of good timing, years of experimentation, or just plain luck. Denise Lee Yohn knows the truth: these companies employed specific techniques that elevated brand building from a niche marketing function to the core driver of their business, turning them into industry icons.

In What Great Brands Do, Yohn sheds light on these proven techniques and identifies the seven key principles that the world's top brands consistently live out. Yohn reveals how:

• Great brands start inside
• Great brands avoid selling products
• Great brands ignore trends
• Great brands don't chase customers
• Great brands sweat the small stuff
• Great brands commit and stay committed
• Great brands never have to "give back"

Demystifying the brand-building process, What Great Brands Do lays out clear steps for implementing each of these principles. These philosophies contribute to Yohn's innovative brand-as-business approach, which puts the brand at the heart of every company decision and fuels faster growth, increased profit margins, stronger corporate cultures, and superior stakeholder relationships. Examining how this approach operates in the real world, What Great Brands Do features case studies that analyze the brand-building successes and failures of companies including Google, Trader Joe's, IBM, Patagonia, Shake Shack, and many others.

A vital resource for CEOs, COOs, entrepreneurs, and other leaders, What Great Brands Do paves a clear and accessible road to building a world-class brand.

Yohn, a branding consultant and speaker, with an all-star client list that includes Sony, Frito-Lay, and Burger King, knows exactly what it takes to raise a brand to the top and keep it there. Here she shares techniques that can elevate a brand to icon status. She explores how a great company can avoid obsolescence by using its brand as a management tool to fuel, align, and guide its people and initiatives. The eponymous seven brand-building principles are each given a chapter: start with a brand-building corporate culture; ignore trends; don't chase customers; commit and stay committed; and avoid selling products. Yohn's exercises, tools, and action steps will help elevate the conversation and undoubtedly enhance any company’s focus on branding. In addition to case studies that feature Google, Trader Joe's, IBM, and Shake Shack, Yohn provides her most valuable recommendations in her "Brand as Business" chapter, which ties together the seven principles and shows how to integrate them to produce growth and brand strength. Yohn's book is helpful reading for executives and managers at all levels, and it will guide the next generation of great brands. (Jan.) (Publishers Weekly, December 2013)

Praise for What Great Brands Do

"With her finger on the pulse of today's competitive business landscape, Denise Lee Yohn knows more than most how to create, sustain, and leverage a great brand. Her writing style coaches readers in a warm and conversational way as she offers up-to-the-minute advice, inspiring examples of organizations that have done it right, and cautionary tales of some who haven't. If you care about building your brand to grow your business, you can't afford not to read What Great Brands Do by Denise Lee Yohn."
—Ken Blanchard, coauthor, The One Minute Manager and TrustWorks!

"Every leader—from CEOs and CMOs to start-up entrepreneurs—will find Denise's seven brand-building principles inspirational and immediately useful. I wish Denise had written What Great Brands Do five years earlier—I would have made it required reading for all P&G brand builders!"
—Jim Stengel, former global marketing officer, P&G, and author, Grow

"The Internet has resulted in an explosion of options for consumers, and never before have brands and branding been more vital to the future of a commercial enterprise. Denise Lee Yohn has bottled the elixir of brands and the magic behind brands in this book."
—Om Malik, founder, GigaOM

"Denise Lee Yohn beautifully highlights some of the most beloved brands and how they've separated themselves from the rest by creating an emotional connection between the organization and its stakeholders. When employees, vendors, customers, and the community feel like a part of the brand, that's when the magic happens."
—Kip Tindell, chairman and CEO, the Container Store

"The seven brand-building principles of What Great Brands Do represent a provocative view of branding. You will look at brand building with new eyes."
—David Aaker, vice-chairman, Prophet, and author, Brand Relevance

"Chock full of astute insights, compelling case studies, and practical tools, What Great Brands Do demystifies the brand-building process and shows business leaders how to revitalize and strengthen their brands."
—John Gerzema, executive chairman, BAV Consulting, and coauthor, New York Times bestseller The Athena Doctrine and The Brand Bubble

Julie McKay is a voice talent and audiobook narrator. She has a degree in music and a background in classical theater. As an actor, she has worked at Shakespeare festivals and regional theaters across the country as well as off-Broadway in New York.