Brandfather John Murphy the man who invented branding

"Brandfather John Murphy the man who invented branding" is an very readable book that tells the story of how Interbrand, the company that he, John Murphy, founded, was at the forefront of the branding revolution.

It reveals how many businesses suddenly appeared to realise at roughly the same time, three decades ago, the importance of their brands.

In fact, a new business discipline was coming into existence, Branding.

Some business seemed happy to bumble and bimble along pretty much as they had always done, but this was at their peril and at great risk to the viability and the future existence of their businesses.

John Murphy founded Interbrand in 1974 and he and Interbrand were recognised as being the main force behind this business revolution.

The origin of Interbrand was that of a name creation business. They would create a name, develop a name, test them and take care of any resultant legal clearances.

The business quickly earned an international reputation and was responsible for the creation of some early successful band names: Hob-Nob biscuits, Viagra, Punto, Mondeo and Homebase.

Four years later John Murphy opened an office in New York City, in 1982 he launched offices in both Frankfurt and Paris and a year later, Tokyo.

During this time he began to realise that there was much more to branding than merely coming up with a name for a business or a product, he realised that there were, actually, the creators of 'brands' which was an unknown concept at that time.

Interbrand decided to redefine themselves (rebrand themselves, even?) and also came up with the term branding.

In 1988 Interbrand went one step further and came up with and developed the concept of "brand valuation" which caused a sensation in the branding sector, propelling Interbrand into the world leader.

This is the no holds barred account of what happened by John Murphy. It tells the story of the company and also of the sector, of the successes and also of the disasters and the lessons that he was able to learn from them. Including a disastrous merger between two massive concerns that ultimately lead him to hit upon the idea of striking out on his own and so Interbrand came into being.

The book is an interesting insight into the highs and lows of Interbrand and how a chance meeting with a rival caused him to realise that bad figures in 1990 were not just a blip but a major recession and caused him to take harsh but necessary business decisions that not only saved the company at a time when some others went to the wall, but enabled it to have record successive years.

This book is required reading for businessmen and businesswomen, for brand experts, marketing gurus and those in the advertising industry.

It is published by The Book Guild at £11.99 and can be bought here  https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.