Brand It Yourself

December 4, 2006
Author and creative consultant Lynn Altman offers a how-to guide to the Brandmaker Express, a process she and partner Joe Viverito have developed to successfully brand consumer products for a long list of well-known companies, including Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Gillette and McDonald's. This brief guide is short on frills but crammed with good, basic advice for creating "the marketplace magic that consumers truly respond to." Brandmaker Express is based on a 10-day turnaround time-considerably faster than most corporate machines would move without a fanatical consultant shuttling them along-and Altman's peppy narrative is laden with successful case studies. The book's focus is limited to consumer products and the print medium exclusively, and even the author admits to her cliche abuse, but good advice is good advice, and her admonition to try "owning one specific thing" instead of trying to be everything to everyone provides the key for succesful branding: "Our process allows us to say everything, but to say it one message at a time." Creatives stuck in strategic planning ("paralysis by analysis") will find this a useful primer or a refreshing reminder.

November 27, 2006
Author and creative consultant Lynn Altman offers a how-to guide to the Brandmaker Express, a process she and partner Joe Viverito have developed to successfully brand consumer products for a long list of well-known companies, including Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Gillette and McDonald's. This brief guide is short on frills but crammed with good, basic advice for creating "the marketplace magic that consumers truly respond to." Brandmaker Express is based on a 10-day turnaround time-considerably faster than most corporate machines would move without a fanatical consultant shuttling them along-and Altman's peppy narrative is laden with successful case studies. The book's focus is limited to consumer products and the print medium exclusively, and even the author admits to her cliché abuse, but good advice is good advice, and her admonition to try "owning one specific thing" instead of trying to be everything to everyone provides the key for succesful branding: "Our process allows us to say everything, but to say it one message at a time." Creatives stuck in strategic planning ("paralysis by analysis") will find this a useful primer or a refreshing reminder.

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.