Includes bibliographical references and index.

What Is Branding, Anyway? -- The Role of Public Relations in Branding -- Birth of a Brand -- Making the Best First Impression -- Planning a Powerful Launch -- Marrying Public Relations and Advertising in Branding -- Brand Maintenance in the Public Eye -- Brand Expansion -- The Celebrity Brand -- Studying the Brand Leaders -- Damage Control -- Successful E-Branding -- Maintaining the Whole Package -- Brand Loyalty and Customer Satisfaction -- Branding through Sponsorship and Endorsement -- Dealing with Copycat Brands.

Branding is ultimately the way you differentiate your product from the competition. Whether you’ re selling a celebrity image, automobiles, or a financial service, your goal is to make your brand the most recognizable by the consumer. But there’ s much more to effective branding than a memorable slogan and ubiquitous advertising– public relations is becoming key to the entire strategy. PR is much more than just damage control for when something goes wrong; it’ s an effective way to communicate the story of your brand through media outlets that the public trusts.

A Branded World looks at branding from the unique perspective of one of America’ s premier PR executives. In it, Michael Levine– whose clients include major Hollywood stars and top musicians– proves PR is a tool just as effective at turning everyday products into widely recognized brands as it is at turning talented artists into household names. Though it has a certain mystery to it, there’ s nothing mystical about PR. Behind the scenes, it’ s a discipline, one that can be taught and learned, practiced and analyzed.

A Branded World utilizes real-world examples and anecdotes from Levine’ s experiences to show how PR fits into and supports a branding campaign. It follows a fictional product– in this case, a brand of ice cream– through the entire branding process, illustrating the many ways PR can help marketers build that once-in-a-lifetime brand. Levine offers a PR professional’ s trenchant analysis of common branding concepts and looks at some of the inspired choices and phenomenal flops in branding history, explaining why some brands become almost sacred while othersare simply forgotten. He also looks at the many ways PR impacts some of the most vital aspects of branding, such as e-branding, first impressions, and brand loyalty.

Filled with engaging stories and nuts-and-bolts tips for leveraging PR to build brands and communicate brand identity to consumers, A Branded World shows marketers and brand managers how to tap into the power of PR to build stronger brands.