The Brand That Breathes: Future Great Brands will be Living Systems

This book is an argument. The argument is that the fundamental metaphor most brand builders carry in their minds, the metaphor of the brand as a building, a structure, a fixed thing, is wrong. And that the wrongness of the metaphor is producing the wrongness of the strategy. When you believe you are building a structure, you hire architects and engineers. When you understand you are growing a living system, you hire gardeners and doctors. The skills are different. The mindset is different. The outcomes are different.

The argument draws on biology, neuroscience, systems theory, organizational psychology, and thirty years of brand case studies spanning industries from luxury goods to fast food to technology. It is informed by conversations with brand builders on five continents and by the work of thinkers from Charles Darwin to Donella Meadows to Daniel Kahneman. But the argument is ultimately simple, the brands that learn to breathe will outlast the brands that refuse to.

Let me show you what I mean.