best books on brand strategy

Top 10 Branding Books In 2021

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Because books are a great source of knowledge and inspiration, we are pleased to share with you our selection of top branding books! The list includes books on strategic branding, but also on the different sub-areas of branding, such as brand purpose, brand positioning, or visual identity design. While providing many practical tips, they will above all offer you a solid understanding of the fundamentals of branding.

The selection will of course be enriched over the months – therefore we would love to hear your recommendations in the comments section below. Happy 2019 – and happy reading!

Branding Concepts & Strategy Books

The New Strategic Brand Management – Advanced Insights & Strategic Thinking
Jean-Noël Kapferer

Jean-Noël Kapferer is an internationally renowned brand expert. He is known for his expertise in brand identity, strategic management, architecture, and more recently on the management of prestige and luxury brands.

"The New Strategic Brand Management" is a classic academic book in the field of branding. In our opinion, it is the best one to understand the fundamentals of strategic brand management. We highly recommend you to read it if you work in the field of marketing or brand management. It is also perfect for university students who want to understand the different concepts and strategies related to branding and brand management.

Building Strong Brands
David Aaker

David Aaker is a pioneer in the world of branding. This book is a classic in the branding and marketing academic literature and an excellent in-depth approach to the different branding concepts. It is written in an academic style but offers excellent basic principles you can apply to improve your brand. We recommend this book to everyone involved in marketing and branding. It is not the most recent book from this author, however, we believe it is the best in terms of explaining all the branding concepts that are sometimes complicated to understand, as he also uses real-life examples.

Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity
Kevin Lane Keller
Vanitha Swaminathan

This new edition of Strategic Brand Management is another classic book and go-to reference in the field of branding. The book refreshes the different concepts related to brand management and explains how they can be applied in your business.

Kevin Lane Keller is also a very famous international expert in the field of branding and brand management. Vanitha Swaminathan is a professor who has published in various academic management and marketing journals and has extensive experience in the field of marketing and branding.

Brand Purpose Book

Do Good: Embracing Brand Citizenship to Fuel Both Purpose and Profit
by Anne Bahr Thompson

Well-researched and easy to read, "Do Good" provides lots of insights, examples, and practical tips for creating brands with a solid purpose. We recommend this book to entrepreneurs or brand managers wondering how they can make their products and services more meaningful to consumers while still turning a profit. If you're interested in this topic, we suggest you have a look at our brand purpose and ethical branding articles.

Brand Naming Book

Hello, my name is awesome
by Alexandra Watkins

This book provides a lot of concrete tips and ideas for creating powerful brand names. The author sums up everything you need to know to come up with powerful brand names through very simple, actionable ideas. The book is a quick read and we recommend it to anyone starting a new company or naming a new product/service.

Brand Positioning Book

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
By Al Ries and Jack Trout

This is a great book for people who wish to understand better the concept of brand positioning, and for those trying to stand out from the crowd. It is a classic on product positioning, a term that gets used a lot in the field of marketing but not always easy to understand. Although quite old, the book still provides an excellent framework for creating branding strategies.

Brand Communication Book

Building a Story Brand
by Donald Miller

If you are not sure how to explain to your potential customers what your company does and/or what products and services it has to offer, then this book is just right for you. Donald Miller will teach you how to communicate your brand with perfect clarity. In particular, the book stresses the importance of clarifying your message so that people can understand you and hear you – but also the importance of portraying the customer as the hero of the story.

Brand Visual Identity Design Books

Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team
by Alina Wheeler

Although the book cover of this new edition doesn't seem very appealing, the content inside the book is worth reading if you're interested in brand identity design! This book is a great introduction to brand identity design for both business owners and marketers and delivers comprehensive best practices and design processes. The layout is clear and easy to understand with special insights from several branding "gurus".

Logo Design Love: A Guide To Creating Iconic Brand Identities
By David Airey

This is a great resource for graphic designers and brand visual identity experts! The book is full of insights for people who want to understand the process of logo design or for those who want to deepen their knowledge further. The content is quick to read and easy to process. It features helpful design examples from real life, problems, and decisions you might face but also smart ideas and solutions to face those situations.

Packaging Design Book

The Future of Packaging: From Linear to Circular
By Tom Skazy

Often called "The Silent Salesman", product packaging is a very important tool for branding strategies because it is often the only branding touchpoint with consumers in stores. However, single-use packaging tends to go directly to landfills (linear economy), and this a major concern for ecologists. In his book, Tom Szaky paints a future of a circular economy limiting overconsumption and waste. The book is a great source of knowledge and inspiration for both start-ups to larger established product companies. It is a guide to designing our economy out of waste and into more sustainable brand innovation.

Brand Architecture Book

Brand Portfolio Strategy
by David Aaker

This is a very insightful book for people managing bigger brands that include respective sub-brands or brand extensions. David Aaker explains in detail the scope, roles, and interconnections of the portfolio brands. Again, the style is quite academic but it will allow you to learn a lot of valid applicable principles in Brand Management.

Luxury Branding Book

Haute 'Luxury' Branding: Professor's Notes
by Philippe Mihailovich & Caroline Taylor

'Haute Luxury Branding' starts with a straightforward, easy-to-grasp introduction to branding and its most important concepts. Philippe Mihailovich and Caroline Taylor then provide unique strategic insights for luxury branding and reveal how true haute luxury artists and maisons differ from brands. You can find an interview with the author here.

Latest update: April 2021.