Posted on 13 January 2026 by Jeff Fuge | Reading time 1–2 mins
My LinkedIn feed has been awash with lists of the great branding and marketing books that people read in 2025. Many of the same titles are recommended time and again, but a book that conveys one of the most important ideas in branding seems to have passed everyone else by: The Smartest Giant in Town by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.
OK, so first up I should not take credit for discovering this book. The plaudits go to my three-year-old as she was the one who wanted me to buy it.
Of course, she may have been more attracted by the bright colours and cute drawings than the prospect of it containing a salient lesson about the nature of brands.
The book tells the story of a giant called George. He lives in a town populated by animals and several other giants. George decides he needs something of a brand makeover (my words not the author’s). So, he heads to the local tailor, bins his scruffy smock, dons a new set of clothes and emerges having rebranded himself as ‘the smartest giant in town’!
All good, right? He feels great about his new look and new positioning. It’s the perfect rebrand… what could go wrong?
Well, the story then progresses through a series of encounters between George and animals who, for one reason or another, are each having a bad day.
There’s a giraffe with a cold neck, a dog who can’t get across a bog, a little white mouse without a house… you get the picture.
George helps each one by donating an item of his new clothing. His tie becomes a scarf for the cold giraffe. His belt helps the dog cross the bog. A shoe becomes a house for the little white mouse.
And on it goes until, after giving away his tie, shirt, sock, shoe and belt, his trousers fall down and he realises he’s looking scruffy again and no longer the smartest giant in town! All that money wasted! Rebrand failure!
George, pre-makeover.
George, neatly rebranded as the smartest giant in town.
I’ll cut to the chase here, and the moment several pages later where George sadly returns home only to find all the animals he’s helped waiting for him with a card and present.
In the card, the animals acknowledge George’s help and – here’s the important bit – that they see him not as the smartest giant in town, but the kindest giant in town.
George learned that what he saw as important and valuable (a smart appearance) was not what others cared about.
The Smartest Giant in Town conveys this often-overlooked lesson in twenty or so pages of colourful fun. But the idea is perhaps best summed up by the words of Marty Neumeier in the slightly more grown-up book, The Brand Gap:
Your brand is not what you say it is, it’s what THEY say it is.
