Copywriting Made Simple: How to Write Powerful and Persuasive Copy that Sells
by Tom Albrighton
This is an excellent introduction to copywriting, offering general advice on the process as well as specific tips for print advertisements, audio and video scripts, sales letters, emails, brochures, and social media posts. The book is divided into three parts: plan your copy, write your copy, and improve your copy. Continue reading “Copywriting Made Simple”
Eat Your Greens: Fact-Based Thinking to Improve Your Brand’s Health
Edited by Wiemer Snijders
This book is a compilation of 42 chapters written by 37 practitioners and scholars of branding, advertising, and marketing. “The brief to all of the contributors was simple: tell us how you apply or find inspiration from marketing science in a short, easy-to-digest paper… I did not ask them to write about a particular topic; this was intended as a bag of nutritious ‘mixed greens.’” There is no chapter on spinach or basil, but somehow cauliflower scored a cameo role in chapter 26. Continue reading “Eat Your Greens: Fact-Based Thinking to Improve Your Brand’s Health”
Effectiveness in Context: A Manual for Brand Building
by Les Binet and Peter Field
Binet and Field have analyzed 18 years of data (1998-2016) from the London-based Institute of Practitioners in Advertising’s IPA Databank, “the confidential data submitted alongside entries to the biennial IPA Effectiveness Awards competition.” This book presents their findings on what works best—in general and in various contexts.
Topics include market penetration, brand-building vs. sales activation, emotional vs. rational consideration, share of voice, pricing, and innovation. Continue reading “Effectiveness in Context: A Manual for Brand Building”
How Brands Grow
by Byron Sharp
This excellent, clearly-written book is based on empirical research covering market share, brand equity, price promotions, and advertising. It includes some counter-intuitive conclusions regarding customer retention, loyalty programs, segmentation, and competitor differentiation. Byron Sharp is the director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. Continue reading “How Brands Grow”
BadMen: How Advertising Went From a Minor Inconvenience to a Major Menace
by Bob Hoffman
In this concise, informative, hilariously irreverent, and brutally honest book, former advertising agency CEO Bob Hoffman explains why ad tech is bad for advertisers, publishers, and consumers. He also calls on advertisers to stop enabling this menace.
“Surveillance marketing is powered largely by advertisers through the tracking of our movements on the web. This is called ‘ad tech.’”
Continue reading “BadMen: How Advertising Went From a Minor Inconvenience to a Major Menace”
101 Things I Learned in Advertising School
by Tracy Arrington with Matthew Frederick
“To some, advertising has no soul, no center… It’s the art of lying.” Advertising executive Tracy Arrington writes, “I would argue the opposite. Advertising is the art of telling the truth. An ad campaign succeeds when it brings forward an embedded truth—about the product or service, our needs or idiosyncrasies as consumers, our daily foibles, or the fixations and biases of our culture. An ad campaign resonates when it shows us, at some level, who we are.”
Here’s a sampling of the expertise shared by the author. Continue reading “101 Things I Learned in Advertising School”
A Technique for Producing Ideas
by James Webb Young
This concise booklet was first published in the 1940s by James Webb Young, who became vice president of the advertising firm J. Walter Thompson and the first chairman of The Advertising Council. He wrote it in response to the question, “How do you get ideas?”
Before explaining the process, Young presents two principles. Continue reading “A Technique for Producing Ideas”
