It's world book day. So today we've all come to the office dressed as our favourite literary characters. But apart from that, it got us to thinking about a list of books that advertising people should read/have read. Obviously everyone should be reading stimulating and interesting stuff all the time anyway, but what about specifically around the subject of advertising. Here’s our shot at a list, some are good thinking, some because they inspire us, and some just because:
What's the big idea? George Lois
Inside Collett Dickenson Pearce. John Ritchie & John Salmon
Ogilvy On Advertising. David Ogilvy
Remember Those Great Volkswagen Ads? Alfredo Marcantonio
The Book Of Gossage. Howard Luck Gossage
Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite. Paul Arden
Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. Luke Sullivan
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. Al Ries & Jack Trout
Truth, Lies & Advertising. Jon Steel
Up The Agency. Peter Mayle
Madscam. George Parker
101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising. Bob Hoffman
Helmut Krone. The Book. Clive Challis
A Technique For Producing Ideas. James Webb Young
And here's a couple that we haven't read yet, but are on the list:
From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor. Jerry Della Femina
Ally & Gargano. Amil Gargano
Creative Mischief. Dave Trott
Any more suggestions?
Blast From The Past: Are You Having It off?
It's February 29th again. Once every four years they say. February 29th is a free day that you normally don't get. So why is it just assumed that if it happens to fall on a week day everyone should have to work? Surely we should just get this extra day to have some fun and do something we enjoy? Last leap year we made this little ditty to promote that idea. It fell on a Friday, you might notice. We leapt on the alliteration...
Bill Bernbach Said #51
Number 51 in our Bernbach series...
“The great mistakes are made when we feel we are beyond questioning.”
Read all of the previous Bernbach Said posts here.
Tall-Tale Postcards
I absolutely love these Tall-Tale Postcards created by photographer Alfred Stanley Johnson, Jr. in the early 20th century. The feel of these early comped photographs is amazing, they're like weird rural versions of surrealist montages, but with a better sense of humour. From the Wisconsin Historical Society: Photographer Alfred Stanley Johnson, Jr. specialized in the tall-tale postcard, extolling Wisconsin's agricultural abundance through images of oversized produce and animals. Staging his friends and family to pantomime story lines, Johnson added enlarged fruits, vegetables and animals to fit the background and included titles that attributed bountiful crops to local communities. Johnson's tall-tale postcards affirmed the American myth of abundance — a myth often at odds with reality.
FROM WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FOUND VIA THE EVER EXCELLENT RETRONAUT.
FROM WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FOUND VIA THE EVER EXCELLENT RETRONAUT.
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