Why Johnny Can’t Brand

“There’s a Big Idea waiting inside your brand that can make you #1. Find it and shape it yourself—or competitors and customers will do it for you. And we promise, you won’t like the tagline.”

A few years back, a shocking best seller called Why Johnny Can’t Read woke up the education establishment and revived the lost art of phonics. Now, Why Johnny Can’t Brand blows the lid off the marketing establishment by reviving the lost art of the Big Idea.

According to Bill Schley and Carl Nichols, Jr., modern branding is a daily choice between real, muscle-building ideas and an immense smorgasbord of empty-caloried junk. The stakes are huge, especially in a world with 155 kinds of shampoo. So why do so many good companies choose wrong? In fact, why do most fail to differentiate at all—handing what some call an “unfair” advantage to the few who do? The surprising answers, and the exclusive, eight-week prescription to fix it, are here in Why Johnny Can’t Brand.

Schley and Nichols—who have more than twenty-five years of experience working with global giants as well as small, spunky, start-ups—present an in-your-face, no-nonsense guide to what real branding and communicating is all about.

The secret is uncovering and focusing on the Dominant Selling Idea—the one unifying idea at the center of every brand—before you charge ahead with advertising or anything else. The Dominant Selling Idea (DSI) is “the thing you do that’s superlative, important and believable, made memorable and tangible—the difference that makes people want to buy you.” It automatically puts you in a category of one.

In the often funny, page-turning style of two award-winning, former Madison Avenue communicators, Schley and Nichols
1.Why real branding is the opposite of what you think
2. How positioning turns your brand asset from fool’s gold to real gold
3. Why Harvard and Stanford MBAs are the last to get it (but fear not—they can learn this too)
4. How to find your Big Idea in about eight weeks—then keep it…
and so much more.

Why Johnny Can’t Brand clears away the morass we thought was branding, just when we need it most. In a world with 300 million messages whizzing by every second, it gives us the ultimate ad- vantage—an inspiring, power-packed return to the secret of the idea centered brand.

Size: A5(14.5*20cm)
Printing: black and white
Format: paperback