Brandwashed: The Marketing Secrets the World's Great Brands Keep to Themselves

Name: Brandwashed: The Marketing Secrets the World's Great Brands Keep to Themselves
ISBN: 9787508662961

Martin LindstromCITIC Press2016

Rating 3.9

Word count: 264K words
Chapters: 13
Series: All-Around Sales Series
ISBN: 9787508662961

Summary

Brandwashed is a bestseller by Danish brand marketing expert Martin Lindstrom, originally titled Brandwashed. The author has long served as a brand consultant for companies such as McDonald's, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Microsoft, and Disney. One day he grew weary of brands and decided to undergo a year-long "brand detox" as an ordinary consumer—buying no new branded products. After six months he declared failure. That failure prompted him to systematically examine how brands quietly enter our minds. He calls the hidden yet highly effective marketing tactics "hidden persuaders" and breaks them down one by one: how brands plant preferences from the fetal stage and childhood; how companies use fear and anxiety to sell hand sanitizer, medicine, and a sense of security; how shopping, games, and smartphones are designed to be addictive; how sexual suggestion and gender stereotypes are used in advertising; how peer pressure and comparison push people to feel they "must have" things; how nostalgia is packaged as a commodity; how celebrity effect turns stars into sellable brand assets; how health and wellness concepts are turned into expensive "bottles of hope"; and in the big data era, how membership cards, credit cards, search records, and other "electronic footprints" are collected, analyzed, and used for personalized persuasion. The final chapter points out that the most powerful hidden persuader is ourselves—consumers influence and "brainwash" one another. The book is both an exposé of marketing's inner workings and a self-defense manual for consumers: it helps marketing, advertising, and PR professionals understand how brands move people, and reminds ordinary readers to recognize the tricks and think clearly about "what to buy and why." The narrative is humorous, dense with cases, and highly readable.

Editor's review

这是一本“反着写”的营销书。作者本身就是全球顶尖的品牌顾问，却选择站在消费者一边，把行业里只做不说的手法摊开来讲。从胎儿期的品牌烙印、恐惧营销、成瘾设计，到性暗示、同侪压力、怀旧、名人效应与大数据的隐私窥探，十章几乎覆盖了现代消费社会的全部“暗线”。它的价值有两层：营销人读到的是可复用的洞察与方法，普通读者读到的是识别套路的免疫力。行文不端架子，全是亲身实验、实地探访和与业内高管的对话，读起来像跟着作者逛了一趟世界的“营销后台”。珍藏版为精装，便于反复翻阅，适合放在案头常读常新。

Who it's for

A good fit for

市场、品牌、广告、公关从业者，想理解品牌打动人心的底层机制
对消费心理与行为经济学感兴趣的普通读者
希望理性消费、减少冲动购物的“剁手党”
商科、传播学相关专业的学生与授课教师

Not a good fit for

期待系统化教科书式营销理论框架的读者
只想看具体实操投放方案、不愿读案例叙事的读者
对消费主义批判类内容感到疲惫、希望读轻松文学作品的人

Reading tips

可先读前言“品牌戒毒”与第10章，理解作者立场与全书落点，再回头逐章阅读。
每读完一章，回想自己最近一次相关的消费行为，对照书中的机制做一次自我复盘。
第9章谈数据与隐私，建议结合自己的会员卡、购物App权限设置一起读，边读边做隐私自查。
把书中案例整理成“手法—心理机制—识别信号”三列表格，便于日后在工作中调用或自我提醒。

About the publisher

CITIC Press China · Founded in 1988

Founded in 1988 and affiliated with China CITIC Group, CITIC Press focuses on business and economics, social sciences, literature and children's books, with common categories covering social sciences, finance, literature, Eastern philosophy and literary appreciation. Its library holds 91 titles, including Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens trilogy, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Wu Xiaobo's Thirty Years of Strife: Chinese Enterprises 1978–2008, Nelly Sachs's The Weight of Butterflies: Selected Poems of Nelly Sachs, as well as New Interpretations of the Analects and Chiang Hsun's lectures on Dream of the Red Chamber. Its authors and translators include Lin Junhong, Ba Shusong, Chen Li and Chang Fen-ling. Overall, the press introduces influential works in finance and social sciences while balancing classic translation and local appreciation in literature and Eastern philosophy, combining academic depth with accessible reading.

Preface
Introduction
Brand Detox
Chapter 1 Buy, Buy, Baby! — Brands Market to Us from the Womb
Chapter 2 Selling Panic and Paranoia — Fear Marketing
Chapter 3 I Can't Quit You — Brand Addiction, Shopaholism, and Why We Can't Live Without Our Smartphones
Chapter 4 Buy It and You'll Get the Girl — The New Face of Sex (and Gender) in Advertising
Chapter 5 Under Pressure — The Power of Peers
Chapter 6 Oh, Sweet Memories — The New Face of Nostalgia Marketing
Chapter 7 The Marketer's Royal Glow — The Power Behind Celebrities and Fame
Chapter 8 Bottles of Hope — The Price of Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Insight
Chapter 9 They're Watching Your Every Move — The End of Privacy
Chapter 10 We Want Everything Mrs. Morgenson Has — The Most Powerful Hidden Persuader Is Ourselves

FAQ

这本书和《影响力》《定位》有什么区别？

《影响力》讲的是说服的通用心理原理，《定位》讲的是如何在消费者心智中占据位置；《品牌洗脑》更偏“揭秘”，用大量真实品牌案例展示恐惧、怀旧、名人、大数据等具体手法如何被落地使用，立场上更贴近消费者。

书中的数据和大数据案例会不会已经过时？

书中对会员卡、电子足迹、个性化推荐的判断属于机制层面的分析，十多年后仍然成立；具体品牌案例和平台名称则带有时代印记，阅读时可把它们当作理解原理的样本，再对照当下的短视频推荐、算法信息流来思考。

没有营销基础能读懂吗？

可以。全书以故事和案例推进，几乎没有术语门槛，作者本人就是以“普通消费者”的视角切入，零基础读者也能顺畅读完，只是收获会偏“自我保护”而非“专业方法”。

2013年版、2016年珍藏版和后续新版有何不同？

内容主体一致，均为赵萌萌译本；2016年珍藏版为精装、篇幅与版式有所调整，后续版本在装帧、定价和少量译名上做了修订。追求阅读体验可选较新的版本，二手价格则旧版更友好。

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About the author

Martin Lindstrom Author

Martin Lindstrom is an author known mainly for his writing on business and marketing; public information about his nationality and life is limited. Seven of his works are included in the collection, with the representative title Brandwashed: The Marketing Secrets Behind the World's Most Famous Brands, along with its collector's edition, plus Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy and The Common Sense Way of Working. His work also appears in the 2022 reading list boxed set recommended by Fan Deng and in the eight-volume series Learning Marketing from Scratch. His writing draws on consumer behavior and brand operations, using cases to reveal the psychological mechanisms behind marketing. Aimed at general readers rather than academic peers, his books are accessible and strongly narrative, and are commonly shelved under economics and finance, business, management, personal growth, and finance, suiting readers interested in consumer culture and brand strategy.