Tag Archives: Bogusky book
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.
I’m reading Bogusky and Windsor’s Baked In and, while frequently meh, the book does sport some wisdom. The crux in my opinion is this:
“[A] brand’s products and marketing not only tell the same story but also have a deep connection to culture and the flexibility to be extraordinary.”
This got me thinking about how brands have existed throughout time, active within a culture. Particularly, one of my favorite: Budweiser.
[Disclosure: Budweiser is a client. In 2010, I completed quite a bit of content strategy for their website redesign and even dug around for a few days in their St. Louis archives.]
What can we learn from brands like Budweiser; brands that have been cultural landmarks for over a century? And what can these classic brands portend for the future?
Early Days
From roughly the industrial revolution through, say, the 1950s, brands offered consistency. They communicated to consumers that this product would be the same each and every time; they stressed dependability.
As Budweiser gained in popularity with this new light lager, imitators tried to encroach on their territory. Adolphus Busch fought this infringement – very much protecting his good name against these inferior products.
The Budweiser brand stressed consistency in these early days, but prohibition ended consumers’ ability to remain loyal. And a funny thing happened – American beer drinkers got used to the sweeter taste of illegally-produced “bathtub” beer.
