Part vs Whole

The difference between product and brand marketing can be best compared to the part versus the whole. A brand is a company such as Nike, Gap, or Kitchen-Aid. Brand marketing pertains to selling an image of the whole company. Marketing schemes for brands relate to the company in its entirety. Product marketing relates to an individual item. For example, marketing Kitchen Aid would be marketing a brand. Marketing a breast cancer awareness salad spinner would be marketing a product. To a company marketing their brand is more important than marketing a product. Products come and go, but a brand name and image forever follow that company.
In the world of books, a publishing house would be considered the brand and a book would be considered the product. Whether a book is marketed as a brand or product depends entirely on the author, title and publishing company. If the author is well-known or if a book is already famous and being reprinted then these elements are the driving forces behind the book’s success. Another factor is whether or not a book is part of an edition or series of books. Penguin produces a Classics Deluxe Edition line. This line is comprised of classics such as Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein that have been reprinted. The cover is redone in a pop-arty manner by a fashionable artist of today’s culture in hopes on landing the book a new younger audience. All of these books look connected and can be discerned as a penguin classic by front cover appearance. Two books from W.W. Norton are currently placed side-by-side at Powell’s in their 30% off clearance section. I immediately wondered if they have been published by the same company based on cover design. The books had similar graphic placement, and font size and leading. These books were The Ticking Is the Bomb and In Other Books, Other Wonders. Overall if a publisher is selling a book because it’s written by a famous author then the author carries the weight of the work and no one really cares who published it. If an author is unknown and is riding on the weight of a particular well-known publisher then this book will be sold by brand name.