About the Author:
RITA CLIFTON is the head of Interbrand London.
Until recently John Simmons was a Director of leading brand consultancy Interbrand. He is now an independent writer and consultant working on brands as diverse as Boots, the BBC and BirdAs Eye (to mention only the BAs).
John has a degree in English Literature from Oxford University. He worked extensively in publishing as a copywriter and as communications manager at the National Economic Development Office before joining Newell and Sorrell in 1984. There he led a design team on many major identity and communication programmes, including those for Royal Mail and Waterstone's. He has advised clients on the use of language to express the distinctiveness of a brand, including Marks & Spencer, Guinness and Air Products.
John is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has three times been a judge in the 'writing for design' category at the D&AD awards, this year as Foreman of the jury. He runs AWriting for designA workshops for D&AD and for thewriter.co.uk.
He has written two books on the subject of the relationship between language and identity. We, me, them & it: the power of words in business was published by Texere in November 2000 and became a business books bestseller on Amazon. The invisible grail: in search of the true language of brands was published in the UK in March 2003, has just been published in the USA and is already in its second edition. In November Profile Books published the Economist Guide to Brands and Branding, jointly edited with Rita Clifton. JohnAs latest book My sisterAs a barista: How they made Starbucks a home from home has just been published by Cyan Books, and he is the series editor for CyanAs Great brand stories.
John is a founder member of 26, the not-for-profit group that champions the cause of more creative language in business.
The Economist is one of the world's most notable magazines. Circulation in the United States and Canada is now more than 700,000 weekly.
Review:
A serious look by a dozen well qualified academics and business consultants at the mysterious yet ubiquitous phenomenon of the commercial brand, which often seems to conjure value out of thin air. A brand can be the most valuable part of a company, even when the profitability of a company is questionable. Yet brand value can also be hugely volatile, as prone to the vagaries of public opinion as political reputations. And our emotional attachment as customers to brands provides conclusive proof that Economic Man is a far from rational animal. Detailed, thorough, definitive. One of the most authoritative studies to date, and certainly the one with the best brand for a business book, The Economist.
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