Every year more books about branding, marketing and advertising are published. Incredibly, entering “branding” into Amazon’s search function generates 55,990 results. “Marketing” generates considerably more.

I’m not sure why there is so much proliferation on the topic except that apparently professional communicators just can’t shut up about their craft.

Some of the offerings provide how-to advice. Some are textbooks. Others recount famous campaigns, pitches, or careers. Some float new hypotheses. Predictably, some are written by consultants with nothing new to say for the sole purpose of giving credibility to their consultancy. (Is there anyone on the speakers’ circuit that hasn’t written a book?)

I’ve read my share of marketing books over the years, some good and some bad, and thought it may be worthwhile to embark on a re-reading and review of the best. Practical advice will earn good marks; esoteric theories will not.

Take a look at the list of possible candidates for the Best Branding & Marketing Book List below. How many have you read? Which ones inspired you? Which ones have you found helpful? Which important books are missing? Which do you recommend … and which should I ignore?

• Absolut Book.: The Absolut Vodka Advertising Story, Richard W. Lewis
• Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, Lois Kelly
• Bill Bernbach’s Book: A History of Advertising That Changed the History of Advertising, Bob Levenson
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell
• Brain Surgery for Suits: 56 Things Every Account Person Should Know, Robert Solomon
• Brand Portfolio Strategy: Creating Relevance, Differentiation, Energy, Leverage, and Clarity, David A. Aaker
• BRAND sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound, Martin Lindstrom
• Building Brand Identity: A Strategy for Success in a Hostile Marketplace, Lynn B. Upshaw
• Building Strong Brands, David A. Aaker
• Building the Brand-Driven Business: Operationalize Your Brand to Drive Profitable Growth, Scott Davis & Michael Dunn
• Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Jim Collins
• Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore
• Customer Behavior: Consumer Behavior and Beyond, Jagdish N. Sheth
• Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands, Alina Wheeler
• Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition, Jack Trout & Matt Beaumont
• Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders, Adam Morgan
• Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People, Marc Gobé
• Enterprise One to One: Tools for Competing in the Interactive Age, Don Peppers & Martha Rogers, PhD
• Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, Relate, Bernd H. Schmitt
• Free Prize Inside: How to Make a Purple Cow, Seth Godin
• From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor, Jerry Della Femina
• FusionBranding: How To Forge Your Brand for the Future, Nick Wreden
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, Jim Collins
• Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff
• Harvard Business Review on Brand Management, Harvard Business School Press
• Harvard Business Review on Marketing, Harvard Business School Press
• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, Clay Shirky
• Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Advertising (Adweek Magazine Series), Luke Sullivan
• How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules For Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients, Jeffrey J. Fox
• Kellogg on Branding, The Marketing Faculty Of The Kellogg School Of Management
• Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands, Kevin Roberts
• Managing Brand Equity, David Aaker
• Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?, Seth Godin
• Media Rules!: Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect With and Keep Your Audience, Brian Reich & Dan Solomon
• Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age, Alison Fine
• Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy
• Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers, Seth Godin
• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, Al Ries & Jack Trout
• Primal Branding, Hanlon
• Principles of Marketing, Philip Kotler & Gary Armstrong
• Reality in Advertising, Rosser Reeves
• Rising Tide : Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at Procter & Gamble, Davis Dyer, Frederick Dalzell & Rowena Olegario
• Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes, Katya Andresen
• Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing, Harry Beckwith
• SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate (Voices That Matter), Joel Postman
• Strategic Brand Communication Campaigns, Don E. Schultz & Beth E. Barnes
• Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity, Kevin Lane Keller
• Strategic Brand Management: Creating and Sustaining Brand Equity Long Term, Jean-Noel Kapferer
• Ted Levitt on Marketing, Ted Levitt
• The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, Al Ries & Laura Ries
• The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, Guy Kawasaki
• The Book of Gossage, Howard Luck Gossage, Jim Goodby & Bruce Bendinger
• The Brand Gap, Marty Nemeier
• The Brand Marketing Book, Joe Marconi
• The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searles & David Weinberger
• The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right, Debbie Weil
• The End of Advertising as We Know It, Sergio Zyman
• The End of Marketing as We Know It, Sergio Zyman
• The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage, B. Joseph Pine
• The Marketing Mavens, Noel Capon
• The Medium is the Message: an Inventory of Effects, Marshall McLuhan
• The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media (Books To Build Your Career By), Paul Gillin
• The Pawnshop Chronicles, Jack E Rossin
• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Revised Ed: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything, Joe Trippi
• The Secrets of Successful Creative Advertising, Tom Attea
• The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Profitable Decision Making, Thomas Nagle
• The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog, Rebecca Blood
• The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki
• Truth, Lies and Advertising : The Art of Account Planning, Jon Steel
• Under the Radar: Talking to Today’s Cynical Consumer, Jonathan Bond
• Unleashing the Ideavirus, Seth Godin
• Welcome to the Wired World: Key Strategic Agendas for Commerce in the Digital Age, Bill Bishop
• Where the Suckers Moon: The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign, Randall Rothenberg
• Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Paco Underhill
• Winning With the P&G 99, Charles L. Decker
• Winning the Marketing War, Gerald A. Michaelson

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