Wally Olins has been a leading brand creator ever since branding first became a separate discipline. He is the most quoted, most respected, and most complete author on branding. And this is his most complete book (to date).
This is not necessarily a visionary or inspiring book. Olins is telling us where we have been, not where we are going. In a lot of ways, this is branding's great textbook -- almost all of the wisdom of branding over the last fifty years is at least referenced here.
In a lot of ways, but not all ways. There is a small modicum of opinion mixed in with established practice. Or, rather, this book is entirely a book of Olins's opinions, but those opinions are textbook in 95% of all he wants to tell us. I'm not saying he is wrong in the other 5% -- for example, he pours scorn on Unique Selling Propositions in a similar way to
Ogilvy -- but some of these opinions run against mainstream views.
For my money -- and I've spent quite a lot of it on books on this subject -- this is one of the two best books on branding. The other is
The 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding by Al Ries. The two books are opposites of each other. Olins tells you everything there is to know, and you can pretty much rely on everything he tells you. Ries challenges (I think correctly, but still controversially) many of the commonest misconceptions about what branding is and how to do it. Ries will give you a head-start in getting to grips with the work, Olins offers you the complete course. Ries is fast-food, Olins is decidedly chewy, and you will need to come back to it several times.
Absolutely recommended.