Product Description
The world is more branded than ever before: Americans encounter anywhere between 3,000 and 5,000 ads a day. Increasingly, brands vie for our attention from insidious angles that target our emotional responses (scent, taste, sound, and touch). In an ever-faster, more competitive global landscape fueled both by the rise of cheaper, foreign brands and by so-called house-brands (the eponymous brands of Wal-Mart, Target, and the like), American companies are in a mad dash to keep up. Branding, or identity-making, has begun to replace the research and development of yore. From the fertile crescent of branding (Cincinnati), to the laboratories of sensory specialists (musicologists and "noses"), Lucas Conley takes us on a long-overdue journey through the strange culture that is our own. As hilarious as it is frightening, Conley's investigation into the phenomenon of rampant commercialism (often backed by little substance), offers an illuminating portrait of an age of obsession.
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 Best of Breed ( johnq2000 )
Having spent a good many years in advertising and marketing, and having read a great many articles and books about the subject, I'll have to admit I did approach this book with a more than casual interest in learning about the current state of the "art".
One of my all time favorites "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard, was the standard of the earlier attempts to dig into the underbelly of the mind grabbing beast called advertising. Well, we've come a long way, Baby.
Lucas Conley's book delivers marketing today, with specificity, freshness, and courage. A "no-holds-barred" look at the disorderly state of the marketing of "brands" instead of the "goods and services" they were originally intended to represent. I found it fascinating.
I originally purchased this book because of the bright red cover, the lettering style and the title. After reading it, I decided to buy additional copies for some of my friends in the business world. Of the books currently out there on the topic, I give this one "Best of Breed".
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 Good read
Perhaps the breeziest business book in years, Obsessive Branding Disorder hooked me in with its gloriously funny potshots at branding executives and the branding industry.
Examples: The state of Kentucky shelled out some $20 million for the words "Unbridled Spirit" and an ad campaign to accompany it, while Connecticut's tourism board assigned colors to each region of the state, because: "The psychology of color was used to further define the brand by zeroing on geographic characteristics or more ethereal elements," said a state tourism director.
If only Lucas Conley could have continued his assault on the world of branding. Sadly, beginning with the story of the Charmin Bath Tissue truck (Page 67), his writing flattens into a catalog of advertising methods and gimmicks the industry continues to trot out...entire stores devoted to a brand, packaged scents, and neuroscience.
(The list is not astoundingly different from other sound-the-alarm tomes of the recent past. Product placement on game shows, celebrities in TV ads, and even radio jingles were considered demons of the day, and while I'd personally argue (and agree with the author) that all of this marketing is taking a toll on our psyches, he provides no evidence that the latest gimmicks are going to be any worse than their predecessors.)
Only in the end does Lucas get back to branding, and this time, he takes successful shots at personal branding before finishing with some fairly well-written philosophical perspectives on the practice.
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OBD Obsessive Branding Disorder
A must read for any marketing specialist and for more than one C level executive. Hopefully, it will prevent some of the readers from loosing sight of the real thing. It shows why Branding is a powerful weapon and why, as such, is dangerous in the hands of extremists. This book might make you re-think your marketing plan. Or even your career.
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 Reals Problem, Wrong Approach ( zygmuntsmw )
Some of the tendencies the author addresses in the advertising industry are indeed disturbing. However, presented with this wealth of information, he reaches the wrong conclusion.
He blames the corporations for creating these brands and boosting sales through cheap gimmicks completely unrelated to product quality. However, the corporations would not observe such practices if they were not the most effective known strategies. Clearly, in the West, people buy image as much as they do a product.
So the correct conclusion is not that corporations are superficial, but rather that most consumers make purchases according to superficial criteria.
People need to ask change of themselves, not of the corporations who will use whatever means are most successful to sell their product. Marketing and advertising is but a mirror into which the collective consumer may look. The author of this book does not like what is to be seen there and concludes that the problem is to be remedied by breaking the mirror.
Finally, I would question whether ubiquitous branding is a disorder. For instance, if I had to choose between having an X Inc. stadium and no stadium at all, I'd rather paste on the logo. What if a poor working mother is able to send her child to college by intelligently investing the money she gets from naming him/her after a company? The kid can change their name when they're 18.
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Said Before
A quick read - and yet it has been said before. As disturbing as the subject matter maybe for marketeers, the author appears to have an ax to grind?
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