The planner’s reading list

In the spirit of “borrowing” from other people smarter than me, here’s a solid planning reading list from Andrew Hovell. I’ve read a bunch of these and they are all fantastic. I’ll be working my way through several more this summer.

Read, in this order:

Truth Lies and Advertising By John Steele

A masterclass in brand planning a collection of Stephen King Essays

Eating the Big Fish by Adam Morgan

The Book of Gossage by Howard Gossage

Perfect Pitch by John Steele

Testing to Destruction – a Paper you can get on the APG website for free

Those are the big ones, that sort of stand the test of time.

Then:

How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp

Brand Immortality by the IPA

The long and short of it – an IPA paper by Peter Field and Les Binet

There are the ones with the most up to date data on how advertising and stuff really work and are essential – but it’s essential to form your own opinion too.

Then:

Cultural Strategy by Douglas Holt

Transformations by Grant McCraken

The stuff you can’t bottle King Ads

Very current, more about how to do imaginative work and great cultural insight.

And ongoing, blogs:

Don’t bother with my rubbish

Read Canalside View by Martin Weigel, go to the start and work through

Read Russell Davies’ archive before around 2008

Read Rob Campbell’s wordpress blog

Read Ad Contrarian

Scamp (for a creative point of view)

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