Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands

Citation

Khoo‐Lattimore, C. (2010), "Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 19 No. 6, pp. 461-461. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610421011085776

You do not learn everything about running a business from a business school. For many, it is through learning on the job, which is the case with the seven entrepreneurs whose stories are told in this book. Then, there are those who learn from studying other successful entrepreneurs. Napolean Hill had done so in 1908 when he interviewed 500 successful businesspeople and published the best‐selling Think and Grow Rich. Today, almost a century later, David Vinjamuri follows in his footsteps by studying seven ordinary people who have no formal training in marketing yet have successfully built multi‐million dollar brands by “accident”.

Seven chapters in this book highlight the success of each one of the seven entrepreneurs in detail. I found myself flipping the pages so I could start reading on the success stories of brands that I am familiar with, such as Baby Einstein and Clif Bar. Julie Aigner‐Clark was dreaming of ways to teach music and art to her first newborn, so she filmed her first children's video in her basement on borrowed equipment. Within five short years, The Baby Einstein Company was making $20min sales. The story of how Gary Erickson first started Clif Bar is equally astounding. With the help of his mother's baking in her kitchen back in 1990, Erickson today has a net worth of more than $500m.

However, my favorite story is that of Gert Boyle. At 83 years old, she is still the chairman of Columbia Sportswear, a position she has held since 1970 when her husband died unexpectedly. At the point when she was forced to take over the company, her only experience was 22 years as a housewife. Yet, she has somehow turned the business around. From a sales turnover of $800,000, Columbia Sportswear is today a $1.2bn public company.

Other chapters feature stories on brands less familiar to readers outside the USA but are equally fascinating. In one chapter, we meet John Peterman, a down‐to‐earth businessman who sells through catalogues. Although the J. Peterman Company's success is not familiar to those outside the USA, John Peterman's accomplishment has been featured on “Seinfeld”, “Oprah”, and CNN. His business was founded when a coat he was wearing started gaining favorable comments. Trusting his instincts, he started to advertise the coats in newspaper ads and found himself leaping from selling one coat to making $580,000 within the same year. For the next 12 years, the J. Peterman Company went from strength to strength (sales peaked at $62m), but an expansion deal with venture capitalists failed him and forced the company into bankruptcy. However, like many successful entrepreneurs, John Peterman rebuilt the company two years later and until now, is growing ever so steadily at 20 percent a year.

Further chapters contain similar motivating tales of people who did not have the means to launch their brands with millions of dollars nor the formal training about the marketing mix. They are ordinary people who overcame poverty or middle‐class lifestyles to beat overwhelming odds and achieve financial fortunes. Erik Malka and his wife Myriam Zaoui sold their car to raise money to open the first “The Art of Shaving” store; Roxanne Quimby started Burt's Bees when she was living in a tiny cabin with a potbelly stove. Today, The Art of Shaving has 27 stores while Burt's Bees is a $30m company.

If there is any criticism, I feel that the six rules to success that Vinjamuri has laid out came too early in the book and would be better suited as a concluding summary of the seven stories presented. Still, they are based on his observation of the seven entrepreneurs that he spent time with and give valuable insight to those trying to build brands. The six rules are outlined as follows:

1. 1.

   Do Sweat the Small Stuff – Successful “accidental marketers” are perfectionists and pay close attention to every detail.

2. 2.

   Pick a Fight – All seven accidental brands featured in this book rejected conventional wisdom and offered something genuinely new.

3. 3.

   Be Your Own Customer – All the seven entrepreneurs founded their companies by solving their own problems and are thus, consumers of their own products.

4. 4.

   Be Unnaturally Persistent – The first few years for these entrepreneurs were painfully slow, but their faith and persistence in their own products paid off.

5. 5.

   Build a Myth – Each entrepreneur had a well‐crafted narrative that tells a good story about his or her brand.

6. 6.

   Be Faithful – Successful entrepreneurs continue to listen to the needs of their core customers and the people who have supported them even long after their brands have become phenomenal.

Accidental Branding is not a marketing textbook, as it does not contain marketing jargon. Rather, it is an easy‐to‐read anthology of seven short stories about everyday people who have built extraordinary brands and enviable businesses. If you are a budding entrepreneur, this book is a must‐read. If you are a brand manager, you will also find it useful, and if you are a marketing academic like me, you will find that this book is a breath of fresh air.