How Taschen Seriously Disrupts Bookselling With Amazing Brand Experiences

Forbes - 14 July , 2016 - Patrick Hanlon

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Photo credit: TASCHEN

 

This week, Barnes & Noble NE -1.90% announced they would be opening a beauty bar at certain B&N locations. No doubt the move is to innovate the B&N book buying experience, or expand ways to diversify Barnes & Noble real estate.

Thanks to competition from online shopping, product mix-matching (like books and beauty) is not as unusual as it once might have been. Streetsmart retailers in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Brooklyn combine wares like leather goods, watches, candles, accessories, letterpress, hipster furniture companies plus baristas in cheerfully wonderful ways.
But what if you just want a book? What if you want to buy a beautiful book? What if you want a beautiful book experience?

Well, you can go to TASCHEN.

Founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen, TASCHEN started by publishing comic books but later evolved with a series of pocket-sized art books. TASCHEN’s origins democratized the serious art world with books that were conveniently inexpensive art collections that fit as easily into your bag as your bookshelf.

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Patrick Hanlon ,  

 

Patrick Hanlon is recognized as one leading branding practitioners in the world. He is ceo and founder of THINKTOPIA, a global brand and strategic innovation practice for Fortune 100 clients including American Express, Levis, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Kraft Foods, Johnson & Johnson, Yum! Foods, Wrigley, PayPal, Gap, the United Nations and others. His book Primal Branding: Create Zealots For Your Brand, Your Company And Your Future was published by Simon & Schuster/Free Press and is listed as one of the Top 10 books in marketing and branding. Primal Branding® is the seminal book on brands as belief systems—and in 2006 anticipated creating social communities around brands, whether products and services, personality brands, political or civic movements, or actual civic communities. Primal Branding is mandatory reading at YouTube, the largest social engagement platform on the planet, as their recommended construct for designing and attracting online social communities. Hanlon’s new book The Social Code: Designing Community In The Digital Age defines how to create communities of advocates who become so passionate about your success, they are willing to create it themselves. Hanlon has been a keynote or guest speaker at IDEO, HP Innovation Series, New York University, American Marketing Association, American Advertising Federation, Syracuse University, Urban Land Institute, and elsewhere. He has also been a featured speaker in emerging geographies including China, India, and South America. Hanlon has been featured, quoted, or interviewed in Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Inc., Advertising Age, National Public Radio, CNBC, FOX and frequent overseas publications. Hanlon is listed as one of the Top 50 people to follow on Twitter, Top 50 Over 50 in Marketing, and is an online contributor for Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., Medium and other publications.