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Branding Only Works on Cattle starts big by ferociously rejecting the advertising-is-about-creating- brand-image view which apparently dominates current branding and marketing practice.

Baskin claims that modern branding campaigns are divorced from the realities of selling and that they confuse communicating ideas and (possibly) creating awareness of the brand name with achieving any real behaviour changes. Influencing what customers think is not enough as only behaviours lead to engagement and the ultimate behavioural goal of any marketing: selling stuff.

Branding Only Works on Cattle proposes getting rid of the idea of a brand as the fuzzy 'brand image' created by communication efforts and insists on a 'brand' that is virtually synonymous with the whole operation of the company in relation to its customer base.

Instead of telling people what to think, Baskin proposes what he calls 'behavioural marketing': activities that will prompt specific (and measurable) behaviours. Instead of fighting for a share of mind, marketers should fight for a share of action.

Inspired by his gaming background, Baskin suggests using the ARG (Alternative Reality Games) as a paradigm for engaging people and behaviour-prompting and explores the way that Internet search changed the way we (both as clients and as marketers) think about purchasing.

Most of the claims made by Branding Only Works on Cattle are hardly new: in fact I would risk saying that most would be every day common sense to most managers in most businesses. However, the advertising-is-about-creating- brand-image approach is more common among the largest companies, and certainly flourishes among the advertising people and specialist branding agencies. It is good to see its business value and its purposes and metrics questioned.

Baskin's book certainly has something valid to say, and I suspect that in the current economic climate its message will find more supporters than ever. It combines 'back to basics' focus on results (actually selling stuff ) with an active and modern approach to utilising the Internet. Its main idea (marketing-as-branding has become a useless strategy; producing awareness and manipulating people's thinking and feeling is nothing if it doesn't produce measurable behaviour) exudes common sense and is bound to attract attention from those keen to save money and obtain results (i.e. anybody apart from your branding agency).

There is, however, quite a bit of evidence contrary to what Baskin claims,

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