Consumer Republic: Using Brands to Get What You Want, Make Corporations Behave, and Maybe Even Save the World

In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell, and for the same people who read Seth Godin and bought The Black Swan and How We Decide, this book breaks down the myth of brands and puts the power back in consumers' hands.

The foundation of Consumer Republic's message is this single, inarguable truth: Brands make corporations accountable. Expensive to create, essential to making money, and more public than anything else a corporation has or does, a brand is an enormously valuable and fragile asset to them. Through this book Bruce Philp will inspire you to buy less, maybe, but demand better; to make better choices; and then to speak up when you're happy and when you're not. Pin every one of these acts to a brand and corporations will be forced to cooperate in making our way of life sustainable. Ultimately, if we take control of brands, we can save the world.

BRUCE PHILP spent nearly three decades in the business of advertising and branding, mediating between corporations who want to make money and consumers who hope to exchange some for a better life. Working with some of the world’s most famous brands, he has been in a unique position to observe how marketers and their consumers operate as two solitudes, and the dysfunction, waste, and damage that often result. In 2008, he co-authored the national bestseller The Orange Code: How ING Direct Succeeded By Being A Rebel With a Cause. Bruce Philp speaks and writes on branding at his blog, Brand Cowboy, and is an occasional contributor to newspaper and marketing trade journals.