The Invisible Grail: In Search of the True Language of Brands [Hardcover]

"How to make love, not war, with words. The Invisible Grail is absolutely chock full of insight and fresh ideas about brands, business and language." -- James Hill, Chairman, Birds Eye Wall's "If you are writing for any business, at any level, then please stop now. And do not start again until you have read this book. There's something incredibly persuasive about John Simmons. But he doesn't just persuade us to take more risks with words in business - with The Invisible Grail he shows us how." -- Martin Hennessey, Creative Director, The Writer "In prose that's friendly, accessible and highly readable, John Simmons takes the reader on a journey that demonstrates the importance of storytelling - and of the writer, in our business, culture and lives." -- Christina Patterson, Director, the Poetry Society

Until recently John Simmons was a Director of leading brand consultancy Interbrand. He is now an independent writer and consultant working on brands as diverse as Boots, the BBC and Bird¿s Eye (to mention only the B¿s).
John has a degree in English Literature from Oxford University. He worked extensively in publishing as a copywriter and as communications manager at the National Economic Development Office before joining Newell and Sorrell in 1984. There he led a design team on many major identity and communication programmes, including those for Royal Mail and Waterstone's. He has advised clients on the use of language to express the distinctiveness of a brand, including Marks & Spencer, Guinness and Air Products.
John is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has three times been a judge in the 'writing for design' category at the D&AD awards, this year as Foreman of the jury. He runs ¿Writing for design¿ workshops for D&AD and for thewriter.co.uk.
He has written two books on the subject of the relationship between language and identity. We, me, them & it: the power of words in business was published by Texere in November 2000 and became a business books bestseller on Amazon. The invisible grail: in search of the true language of brands was published in the UK in March 2003, has just been published in the USA and is already in its second edition. In November Profile Books published the Economist Guide to Brands and Branding, jointly edited with Rita Clifton. John¿s latest book My sister¿s a barista: How they made Starbucks a home from home has just been published by Cyan Books, and he is the series editor for Cyan¿s Great brand stories.
John is a founder member of 26, the not-for-profit group that champions the cause of more creative language in business.