Obsessed Summary

Name: Obsessed
Rating: 4.9 (4311 reviews)
Author: Emily Heyward

by

Emily Heyward

About Obsessed Book

The 2020 Porchlight Marketing & Sales Book of the Year

The cofounder and chief branding officer of Red Antler, the branding and marketing company for startups and new ventures, explains how hot new brands like Casper, Allbirds, Sweetgreen, and Everlane build devoted fan followings right out of the gate.

We're in the midst of a startup revolution, with new brands popping up every day, taking over our Instagram feeds and vying for our affection. Every category is up for grabs, and traditional brands are seeing their businesses erode as hundreds of small companies encroach on their territory, each hoping to become the next runaway success. But it's not enough to have a great idea, or a cool logo.

Emily Heyward founded Red Antler, the Brooklyn based brand and marketing company, to help entrepreneurs embed brand as a driver of business success from the beginning. In Obsessed, Heyward outlines the new principles of what it takes to build and launch a brand that has people queuing up to buy it on opening day. She takes you behind the scenes of the creation of some of today's hottest new brands, showing you:

  •  How Casper was able to upend the mattress industry by building a beloved brand where none had existed before
  •  How the dating app Hinge won a fanatical user base and great word-of-mouth with the promise that the app was "designed to be deleted"
  •  Why luggage startup Away, now valued at $1.4 billion, could build their brand around love of travel by launching with just one product--a hard-shell carry-on suitcase--rather than a whole range of luggage offerings.

Whether you're starting a new business, launching a new product line, or looking to refresh a brand for a new generation of customers, Obsessed shows you why the old rules of brand-building no longer apply, and what really works for today's customers.

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4.9/5 (4311 reviews)

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David Garcia

Obsessed: Building a Brand People Love from Day One

by Emily Heyward

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9.36K reads

How modern marketing works

Long ago, a great user experience design was enough to give an edge. If something was easy to use or functioned well, it was enough to get people excited.

Now, your brand is far more important. Branding in the traditional sense is not enough. Branding is not a logo, your name, or a tagline. To build a winning brand today, you have to start with your customer and the issue you're solving for them.

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Consider the brand's purpose before you launch

Leading brands are capable of forming deep emotional connections because they stand for something people care about.

Founders should consider the brand before day one. It is not an afterthought but forms the core of your culture from the start. This way, your brand will always portray its fundamental purpose and guide any difficult decisions.

When determining your brand:

Identify who the brand is for.
Identify the key problem
Identify the answer to the key problem via the brand.

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Promote the emotional

When you launch a new product, think about what the brand does and how it makes people feel. People love brands that stand for a clear emotional idea that is bigger than the product's benefits.

Connect the product to a meaningful story to create a strong bond. The emotional idea should be backed up with a practical function.

Start with the problem you're solving:

Define the idea a brand stands for.
Define how it should make people feel.
Then think about tonality, design, and language.

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Anderson Hauptli

Obsessed by Emily Heyward provides a series of suggestions and considerations for brands hitting the market. Heyward also explores nuances of human behavior and exhibits them through a series of chapters and case studies in marketing.