Accidental Branding by David Vinjamuri

Since my post yesterday was about the Seth Godin action figure, I thought it would be appropriate to follow up today with a post about a new book by David Vinjamuri, Accidental Branding, that Seth Godin endorsed by saying, “The central idea of this book is nothing short of brilliant.”

Accidental Branding, How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands tells the story of seven average people who developed incredibly successful brands despite their lack of formal marketing training.  Instead, each person had a strong belief in his or her product and enough common sense and commitment to develop those products into powerful brands and businesses.

Vinjamuri tells the stories of:

• The Storyteller: John Peterman (J. Peterman)
• The Contrarian: Craig Newmark (craigslist)
• The Tinkerer: Gary Erickson (Clif Bar)
• The Visionary and the Strategist: Myriam Zaoui and Eric Malka (The Art of Shaving)
• The Pugilist: Gert Boyle (Columbia Sportswear)
• The Perfectionist: Julie Aigner-Clark (Baby Einstein)
• The Anarchist: Roxanne Quimby (Burt’s Bees)

Each person’s story is very different and demonstrates a variety of core business and marketing lessons readers can learn from regardless of formal training and experience levels.  Vinjamuri sums up the lessons to be learned from these seven accidental marketers with six rules:

1. Do sweat the small stuff
2. Pick a fight
3. Be your own customer
4. Be unnaturally persistent
5. Build a myth
6. Be faithful

I’ve talked about some of these lessons here on Brandcurve (especially the persistence and faithful messages in terms of being persistent and consistent with your brand message and promise).  There is much more to be learned from Accidental Branding.  It’s an easy read packed with a lot of useful information, some of which will really make you stop and think about your own marketing and branding initiatives.  I definitely recommend this book.

Image source: Amazon.com