Primal Branding

Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future

By: Patrick Hanlon

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

What is it that made Starbucks an overnight sensation and separated it from other coffee house companies? Why do many products with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising, fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace as brands like Apple and Nike? Patrick Hanlon, senior advertising executive and founder of Thinktopia, decided to find the answers. His search revealed seven definable assets that together construct the belief system that lies behind every successful brand, whether it's a product, service, city, personality, social cause, or movement.

In Primal Branding, Hanlon explores those seven components, known as the primal code, and shows how to use and combine them to create a community of believers in which the consumer develops a powerful emotional attachment to the brand. These techniques work for anyone involved in creating and selling an image, from marketing managers to social advocates to business leaders seeking to increase customer preference for new or existing products. Primal Branding presents a world of new possibility for marketers of every stripe, and the opportunity to move from being just another product on the shelf to becoming a desired and necessary part of the culture.

Patrick Hanlon has served as a senior executive at the world's most creative advertising agencies, working on famous brands including Absolut, UPS, Sears, and IBM. In August 2003, he founded Thinktopia and began sharing the primal branding concept with marketers from Target, LEGO, Starbucks, and elsewhere. He lives in Minneapolis.

©2006 Patrick Hanlon; (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Hanlon's energetic case for thinking differently about common practices makes for a rousing read." (Publishers Weekly)

Good but not great

If you were looking for a step-by-step how to "Primal Branding" instructional book this is not it. As far as an interesting story goes it's very good. The beginning chapters in the conclusion at the end are all you really need, some of the stories in the middle are inspirational some of them are very long-winded, without really giving you a moral to the story, or reason behind telling it.
That being said, I did learn a few things from this book and it was worth my monthly free download.

Great Guidance to Building Brand

This was a very useful guide to building a brand. All boiled down to 7 tenants. Well performed and great delivery of key information that is useful for your company or yourself in building an enduring brand. Highly recommend .

Great Brand Exercise

Great tips to enhance your brand. This book really makes you think of your company in more detail.

Amazing content!

Lots of interesting snippets of information that speak about how to build a solid basis for sustainable community and brand building!

Excellent advice

This is a great book for an overall idea of what branding and marketing is all about for company. There are plenty of examples throughout the book to drive home the point.