Review: Branded Male

Speaking of marketing for men, I just finished the book Branded Male by Mark Tungate. This was another free book sent to me for review. I enjoyed this book way more than the last one too.

The Pros

Mark Tungate is a British journalist and author based in Paris. His style is entertaining and witty, making this book a pleasure to read. I breezed through it quickly.

The chapters are organized to reflect a day in the life of a typical modern male in the UK, though some of this behaviors can be seen in US men as well. They follow him as he:

• Grooms himself upon waking (cleaning, shaving, etc)
• Selects his clothes for the day
• Thinks about dieting
• Furnishes his home
• Drives his car
• Travels for work
• Reads magazines & newspapers
• Uses electronics
• Stays in a hotel
• Watches TV
• Works out at the gym
• Drinks alcohol
• Eats dinner
• And, of course, has sex

As you can see, this covers just about every common activity a typical modern man has to do, short of personal hobbies & interests.

After each chapter frames the day in the life vignette, Tungate goes into the market research behind each behavior and quotes from numerous sources. Loads of anecdotal evidence is provided with each. Then a short & succinct summary, called a Branding Toolkit, is provided that nicely closes each chapter.

If you’re a marketer for any kind of product or service aimed at men, you’ll find this book interesting and chock full of useful tidbits, like juicy raisins in bland oat bran. For me, who hasn’t had to do marketing for men before, I learned a lot from Branded Male. I especially liked the brief history lesson of men’s fashion and how the modern-day suit came to be—apparently a “dandy” by the name of George “Beau” Brummell set the template for what is now the business suit.

The Cons

I found the numerous quoted sources a bit tiresome after a while. There are sections in the book where every other chapter is a quote from another source. While I appreciate the exhaustive research he’s done, the quotes became distracting after a while.

This isn’t a complaint at all, but US readers will notice that Tungate uses lots of UK spellings and phrases throughout the book. Lots of “colour” instead of “color”, “looking smart” instead of “looking handsome” (or maybe, “looking sharp”), and “11.30″ o’clock time notation instead of “11:30″ o’clock time notation. Not a surprise at all, since he’s a British journalist.

I really didn’t have any complaints about this book. Fun read, useful information, good organization… I think I may actually check out some of Tungate’s other books too, if they’re as good as this one.