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The planner’s reading list

July 1, 2014 4 Comments

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)

Here’s a link to the full blog post.

And for my on becoming a planner, I recommend:

How to become a Planner parts one, two, three, four, five, and six.

5 Marketing and Creativity Books That Stand the Test of Time

Filed under Account Planning, advertising Tagged with Account Planning, advertising, books, brands, Marketing and Advertising, Strategy

I hate bottled water but…

May 12, 2014 Leave a comment

This is so awesome. Well done Honda.

You still have the issue of the bottle but the product, the story, the execution, are all fantastic.

All you have to do now is bring the FCX Clarity to the US. And help us build a network of hydrogen filling stations.

Honda FCX Clarity (Photo credit: Daniel Reversat)

Honda Creates Bottled Water From Its Hydrogen Fuel Cell Emissions [Video]

Filed under advertising, I wish I had done that Tagged with advertising, auto, bottled water, brands, cars, Honda, Honda FCX, Marketing and Advertising, psfk, technology, Water

The Iron Price or the Blood Price?

May 5, 2014 Leave a comment

A pop-up shop for The Walking Dead where you pay for your purchases – with your blood. So awesome.

We’d love to think that people will donate blood out of the goodness of their heart, but often times it takes something else. Sometimes it’s public shaming. Or a local/national tragedy. Sometimes it’s money. Whatever it takes, it’s a good thing.

Via PSFK

The Walking Dead Blood Store

Filed under advertising, I wish I had done that Tagged with advertising, Blood, Blood donation, brands, Marketing and Advertising, Pop-up store, Walking Dead

FTFY

March 27, 2014 Leave a comment

Earlier today, after blogging about a company called HomeJoy‘s lack of understanding of how memes work (and an RT from my buddy Kevin), their communications director shot me a note saying “message received.” Nice to see them paying attention. But it’s a slow day here in the office so I figured I’d help them out a bit more.

Seeing as how their key RTB is “$38 for a clean home” and they like the idea of memes, I made them a few.

Attention Homejoy, if you use any these, I expect royalties or commissions, or a free t-shirt, or something.

Filed under advertising, Blogging, brands, social media Tagged with bad luck brian, blogs, brands, good guy greg, humor, memes, most interesting man in the world, ski instructor, social media

I wish I did that (part II)

March 19, 2014 Leave a comment

Awesome use of Vine by Lowe’s.

Fix in Six

Filed under advertising, I wish I had done that Tagged with advertising, brands, technology, video

And now, your social media fail of the day

December 17, 2013 2 Comments

Not only does Mt Gox (a BitCoin exchange) have their Twitter account set to auto-reply (a big no-no), the auto-reply message is basically just telling you to fuck off. AND THEN, the message is more than 140 characters!

Maybe they’re too busy watching their BitCoin valuation shoot the roof to care about something as silly as Twitter. That’s okay!

But if that’s your plan, why use Twitter at all?

Probably, because internet.

Filed under advertising, brands, social media, Technology Tagged with brands, fail, faux pas, social, social media, social media fail, Twitter

“Here’s $2 and a chance to win a vacation” – The most effective marketing you’ll see all day.

February 19, 2013 Leave a comment

This is what greeted me today as I left Back Bay Station on my way to work. A guy was handing out these envelopes to anyone who passed by announcing “Two free dollars and a chance to win a vacation.” I’m usually in the camp of people who would prefer to pepper spray anyone who attempts to talk to me, or hand me anything, on the street, but I figured, two bucks is two bucks.

And as you can see, it was a real two dollar bill. and a real chance to win a vacation (I didn’t win).

But ask me about the last banner ad I saw? NOTHING. The last banner ad (or “OLA” as us in the advertising world like to call them) that I can remember was a home page takeover of the NY Times, where the “I’m a Mac” and “I’m a PC” guy pulled a lever in a unit on the right-hand side, and it changed the headlines on the leader board banner at the top. And that was probably 2008.

Not only did I tweet and Facebook about this promotion, now I’m blogging about it. Well done TNT Vacations.

In order to find out if you won the vacation you need to enter your email address. How many address will they collect today? The guy handing out the envelopes had a big stack. And he had probably been there for a while already. Multiple that across a few cities and you have a nice email recruitment effort. A nice, CHEAP, recruitment effort. Even if only 1 in 10 people check to see if they have one, it’s still only a cost-per-acquisition of $20.

Compare that with average click through rates of .05% for display ads and it seems to me that you need to run A LOT of banners to get that same person to take action. Granted, there is no opportunity for storytelling here, no brand-building creative, they didn’t change my perception of TNT Vacations (although they did make me aware of it, so that’s pretty good).

I often wonder, when my clients tell me that want to spend millions of dollars on banner ads, whether or not it would be more effective to simply pass out money on a street corner.

If anyone from TNT Vacations (or their parent company Funjet Vacations) is reading this and want to get in touch and share some data, I’d love to see it.

Just so you know, banner ads used to be A LOT more effective:

BEHOLD: The First Banner Ad Ever – From 1994

Filed under Uncategorized Tagged with advertising, brands, Marketing and Advertising, Strategy

The Automotive Arms Race

October 9, 2012 Leave a comment

Two weeks ago, after attending an all day “immersion session” about a new vehicle my clients in Detroit are launching I was getting into my car in the satellite parking lot when a car pulled up next to me.

“Hey” said the driver, “You guys just coming from [CLIENT NAME REDACTED]? You work there? Agency guys?”

He was driving a vehicle made by my client, was in a parking lot that I believe is affiliated with my client, but this seemed a little off.

“Yeah, agency,” I replied, feeling uneasy. Who was this guy? “We were at a workshop.”

“So what’d they have up there? New vehicles?”

This is when I started getting nervous. I gave my co-worker the “get the F^&K in the car, now,” look and curtly replied “Just learning about some vehicles.” and got in the car as he drove off.

I have no idea who he was. My memory is fuzzy, but he may have looked like this:

Hot Tub Crime Machine

The planner’s reading list

I hate bottled water but…

The Iron Price or the Blood Price?

I wish I did that (part II)

“Here’s $2 and a chance to win a vacation” – The most effective marketing you’ll see all day.

The Automotive Arms Race

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