Book review: Perspectives on Branding

Jason Miletsky and Genevieve Smith each separately answer 90 questions about branding in this work, Smith from the corporate side and Miletsky from the agency side. While the two have very different writing styles and experiences, the narrative weaves itself into a compelling book that comprehensively covers business branding as a topic.

Miletsky's style is less formal and a few times in the book he uses words and phrases that I don't ordinarily find in business books (or in polite company) while Smith is clearly more formal in her answers. Her responses are drawn almost, if not, entirely from her experience at Washington Mutual (annoyingly referred to as "WaMu" throughout the book) and his answers come from his experiences at his agency, PFS Marketwyse.

As I read each question I first thought about how I would answer the question and then compared that to how the authors responded. In all but a few cases I was satisfied with the responses that each author gave and was fascinated at times by the different perspectives. What perhaps was most refreshing was the interplay and how it affects the reader. You will find yourself thinking about the questions and the branding process and then you'll look for the nuggets of information to be gained from each author. There are plenty of nuggets to be had. The fact that you are thinking about the process means the book accomplishes what a good book is supposed to do.

This is a very good book that is easily digestible and is not pretentious in its approach toward the topic. It brings business branding to a level that is approachable by most any business manager and that in and of itself is quite a feat. I recommend this work.