As the ‘noughties’ finish, those of us in the marketing/advertising/PR (more simply termed, ‘communications’) industry recall last decade’s tectonic shifts with nervous anticipation. Brands are finally able to offer its customers advertising they can choose to watch, services they genuinely enjoy and dialogues that are, well, actual conversations.
At the same time, a large number of traditional agencies have disappeared while audiences seem to be everywhere but in front of TV sets or newspapers. And yet the French adage, ‘the more things change the more they stay the same’ still holds. Here are 10 books published last decade offering a good shape of the communications industry and what’s to come:
What’s Changing?
1. The Idea Writers by Teressa Iezzi: If you want to get caught up fast, read this. It’s a great primer with plenty of insights on what’s changed and what’s still required to get an audience’s attention, online or off. Teressa is the editor of Advertising Age’s Creativity magazine and an expert on branded campaigns. Highly recommended.
2. Baked In by Alex Bogusky and John Winsor: This book was written by what could be the alpha and the omega of advertising in the past decade. Alex Bogusky is arguably one of the leaders of “a second “Golden Creative Age” and “Creative Revolution”. John Winsor is the founder of crowdsourcing agency Victors & Spoils, perhaps the end of what we call agencies today. Together they’ve written a book that expands the marketing process into product design, anthropology and beyond.
3. Hoopla by Crispin, Porter & Bogusky with Warren Berger: An ad shouldn’t be an ad. It should be a piece of news that invites curiosity, which brings about engagement. This thinking is what made CP+B one of the most renowned agencies of the last decade. It also makes the book worth reading.
4. Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini: What probably won’t ever change are the soothsayers and scientists who claim to know your heart. What’s news is how much of our conventional wisdom is being proven wrong, and how a few slight tweaks could drastically change our persuasive impact.
5. The Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy by Tom Monahan: Most books on ideation are shelf dressing. Some are too short, too theoretical or contain too many accessories to be worth your effort. Not so with Monahan’s book. It contains plenty of advice while condensing your brainstorm into a number of exercises that you can do from anywhere.
What’s Staying the Same?
6. The Art of Client Service by Robert Solomon: As long as business exists, there will be clients. Solomon presents a great refresher on client service, with engaging stories and important lessons on how to sell great work.
7. It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be. By Paul Ardern: Legendary art director, commercial director and former creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi during its red-hot years, Paul Arden also became a best-selling author. Using beautiful layouts and well-chosen words, he created an Art of War for the post-modern age.
8. Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite. By Paul Arden: Arden’s fascinating follow-up to his wildly successful first book. Using the format of the first, this book features a series of unconventional truths that have led Arden to great acclaim. Truths like: recklessness is an asset, risk is security and unreason is better than reason. Both books should be constant rereads.
9. The Creative Process Illustrated by W. Glenn Griffin and Deborah Morrison: Unlike asking your favorite creative directors to draw you a diagram of how they come up with ideas, many actually found time to fill this book. There’s still much to learn about how ideas are formed. Use these self-portraits of the creative process for inspiration while you wait for a scientific cure to writer’s block.
10. E by Matthew Beaumont: Whether it’s Words and Pictures , Mad Men or Putney Swope, stories of agency life will always be entertaining (and over-exaggerated). Written entirely in emails, think of E as a fictionalized Wikileaks for a particularly dysfunctional ad agency.
And One for All Decades:
11. The Book of Gossage by Howard Gossage, edited by Prof. Kim Rotzoll, Jarlath Graham and Barrows Mussey: First published in 1995, I’ve included this book because it’s time we resolved to give our tomes of Ogilvy on Advertising (cough—Ogilvy promo pieces—cough) to Mad Men fans rather than aspiring students. Instead of David Ogilvy’s invocations against humor, reverse type, and color printing, readers of Howard Gossage would learn lessons useful to this era. Interactive principles like leaving the target room to talk back, making content interesting, and creating ideas that compel your target to interact were all staunch Gossage beliefs.
These are my top picks for the 00’s. Many are missing because I’m sure you’ve probably read all the Godins and Gladwells out there. Perhaps your other favorites didn’t make it because I never got around to them. What others would you add?
And while we’re on the topic, I’ve got my eye on a couple new books for the new decade. Namely, Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo and War of Art by Stephen Pressfield
What’s on your reading list as we kick off 2011?
Richard is a Copywriter in the CM Toronto office.
