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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 and 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 evolve, so we would love your suggestions in the comments below.
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Table of Contents
Brand ArchitectureBrand architecture defines the role of each brand and acts as a guideline for the interrelationship between the brands in your organization.
Brand Portfolio Strategy
Author: David Aaker
Brand Portfolio Strategy is a very insightful book for people managing large brands that include respective sub-brands or brand extensions. David Aaker explains in detail the scope, roles, and interconnections of portfolio brands and where they sit in a company’s brand architecture. As with many of Aaker’s books, the writing style is relatively academic, but it will allow you to learn a lot of valid and applicable principles in brand management.
Brand Communications
Building a Story Brand
Author: 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 Building a Story Brand 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 Identity
Archetypes in Branding: A Toolkit for Creatives and Strategists
Authors: Margaret Hartwell & Joshua C. Chen
Archetypes in Branding is an excellent resource for anyone looking to improve their branding strategies. It takes complex ideas and makes them easy to understand and engaging. The toolkit features a unique mix of a card deck and a detailed guide, which helps you explore and apply brand archetypes effectively. Plus, the hands-on experience of using the cards makes it a fun and visually appealing way to identify and refine your brand identity.
Brand Positioning
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
Authors: Al Ries & Jack Trout
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind is a great book for people who wish to understand the concept of brand positioning better and for those trying to stand out from the crowd. It is a classic book on product positioning, a term that gets used a lot in the field of marketing but is not always easy to understand. Although already published in 2001, the book still provides an excellent framework for creating branding strategies.
Brand Purpose
Do Good: Embracing Brand Citizenship to Fuel Both Purpose and Profit
Author: Anne Bahr Thompson
Well-researched and easy to read, Do Good provides many insights, examples, and practical tips for creating brands with a solid purpose. We recommend this book to entrepreneurs or brand managers who are 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.
Branding Strategy
Building Strong Brands
Author: David Aaker
David Aaker is a pioneer in the world of branding. Building Strong Brands 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 book to explain 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
Authors: 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 to your business.
Kevin Lane Keller is an 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.
The New Strategic Brand Management – Advanced Insights & Strategic Thinking
Author: 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, 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 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.
Luxury Branding
Haute ‘Luxury’ Branding: Professor’s Notes
Authors: Philippe Mihailovich & Caroline Taylor
Haute Luxury Branding starts with a straightforward, easy-to-grasp introduction to branding and its most essential 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. Learn more about the author and the concept of luxury branding in our interview with Philippe Mihailovich.
Naming
Hello, My Name Is Awesome
Author: Alexandra Watkins
Hello, My Name Is Awesome provides many concrete tips and ideas for creating powerful brand names. The author sums up everything you need to know to develop catchy 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.
Packaging Design
The Future of Packaging: From Linear to Circular
Author: 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), which is a significant concern for ecologists. In his book, Tom Szaky paints a future of a circular economy limiting overconsumption and waste. The Future of Packaging is an excellent source of knowledge and inspiration for start-ups and larger established product companies. It guides designing our economy out of waste and into more sustainable brand innovation.
Visual Identity Design
Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team
Author: Alina Wheeler
Designing Brand Identity is a must-read if you’re interested in brand identity design. This book is an excellent 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 unique insights from several branding authorities and experts.
Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities
Author: David Airey
Another recommended resource for graphic designers and brand visual identity experts. Logo Design Love is full of insights for people who want to understand the process of logo design or for those who wish 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, as well as intelligent ideas and solutions to face those situations.
Last Update: October 2024
Marion I appreciate your selection, it is good; I want to suggest a great book on contemporary branding: Building Brand Experiences by Darren Coleman, stongly recommended.
Hi Alvaro, thank you for the insight! We will check out the book you recommend. Have a nice day!
Hello, my name is awesome was verall a very good short book on branding. There were a few issues mentioned in other reviews (trademarking band names). However, the detailed walk through of the process behind finding names was very helpful.
Thank you for the awesome collection, I shall start reading other books soon.
You shared the best books for branding in the article. I also like to add another one called “Sticky Branding” which deliver the deep knowledge and information about the branding.
really helpful to decide book to buy
Thanks for including my book, “Hello, My Name is Awesome.” How did you discover it?
Thank you for sharing this great information. The Brand Portfolio Strategy really helped me a lot.
Thank You
“The Future of Packaging: From Linear to Circular” I am much interested in reading this book coz it may help me to get a good idea about packaging. I am also starting my own Tea Brand so, I am looking forward to reading this interesting book.
Thanks for this very helpful article.
Thank you for all the insights. I found it really useful for my first campaign.
I also recommend “Brand Elevation” a guide on how to make brands meaningful and stand above the competition. Very useful for those who can not/don’t want to compete in the low-price segment. Written by the authors of “Rethinking Prestige Branding,” which is a reference book in Lifestyle/Lux marketing.
Super collection. Will be purchasing a few of these for reference. Thanks.
Great Article! This is amazing!!
Hi Marion. Great list! I’d love it if you’d consider adding my new book, Brand Naming, in your section on books about brand naming. It came out on December 14, just after you updated this list! It features a foreword by Alina Wheeler (who wrote Designing Brand Identity, which is already on your list) and has been endorsed by David Aaker, Marty Neumeier, and others. I hope you’ll take a look. Thanks!
Hi Rob, thanks for your message. Please send a copy of your book to co*****@th****************.com so we can consider adding it to our list :)
Exactly the great collection I needed
Great I will add these books to my wishlist
yup! that’s what I needed I. An excellent and different book list.
Nice Collection. Thanks for sharing I really loved it.
Thanks Krishna, we’re glad it helps!