Advertising Books

Many fundraising books show you the mechanics of fundraising. Ms. Sprinkel does that, but more importantly, she shows the reader how to approach fundraising with the proper mindset. Gone it the "tin cup" mentality. Instead, she advocates that we approach fundraising with an investment mindset.

Having set the stage with her philosophical approach to fundraising, Ms. Grace proceeds to walk the reader through the different stages of fundraising, including annual and capital campaigns.

I used the information in this book to assist the development team at my children's school with a capital campaign. We trained a number of people in the art of fundraising and went on to raise the money needed for a new building. While I won't give Ms. Grace all the credit, I can say with confidence that the advice she dispenses in clearly written and very effective.

This book provides non-profit executives with a very practical approach to making their organizations more successful financially and more relevant to their audiences. I have advised many non-profits on a range of issues, and I am envious of Grace's admonition to "put away the tin cup." That's one of the truest, most important things that today's non-profit leaders could hear.

Many fundraising books show you the mechanics of fundraising. Ms. Sprinkel does that, but more importantly, she shows the reader how to approach fundraising with the proper mindset. Gone is the "tin cup" mentality. Instead, she advocates that we approach fundraising with an investment mindset.

Having set the stage with her philosophical approach to fundraising, Ms. Grace proceeds to walk the reader through the different stages of fundraising, including annual and capital campaigns.

I used the information in this book to assist the development team at my children's school with a capital campaign. We trained a number of people in the art of fundraising and went on to raise the money needed for a new building. While I won't give Ms. Grace all the credit, I can say with confidence that the advice she dispenses is clearly written and very effective.

Defining the difference between fund-raising and donor development was an eye-opener. In a non-profit world that is increasingly competitive for the donor dollar, Ms. Grace offers a powerfully different approach. Of particular interest was reference to values-based mission statements. Something from which every fund-raising organization can learn

This is one of the best books I have read. It contains a wealth of advertising wisdom. Bill Bernbach is perhaps the best advertising man the industry has had.

The greatest copywriter/ad-man of all time figured it out for the rest of us. Tell the truth, make it interesting, and say it a different way. No other book tells the story as well as this one does. This is the book to have in your library. When you get your copy, hold onto it for dear livelihood.

What are you doing in advertising if you haven't read it yet

This book is of utmost necessity and reference for anyone in the advertising business. It is out of print and hard to find, just like the good ideas it contains. Original, funny, intelligent. Bill Bernbach made a career for a reason !

Few Asian companies have been successful in developing international brands. It is now a sophisticated process that puts together and sustains a complex mixture of local and international attributes and values , something that is tangible.Its interesting how Temporal have chosen the different products ( over 20 )from leading Asian and Western brands to show good examples of how companies have used the fundamentals of branding to achieve global success. He has provided illustrative examples, techniques , exercises and invaluable advice for any company in Asia regardless of size that strives for more than being just another local household name.

Asian market is unique with their traditional cultural. Brands should be though for leading in this area. This book must be read for the company who : - want to build a strong image - want a competitive advantage - struggle in asian market

One of the ways to achieve sustainable growth in any market is a recognisable brand name. While many Western companies have successfully developed international brands, Asian companies have been slow to follow suit. How is it that Asia, a region that has such high brand appreciation, produces so few international brands of its own?

In this groundbreaking book, Asia's leading brand architect addresses this unusual situation, explains the fundamentals of branding and shows how companies can use them to achieve outstanding performance. Containing over 20 case studies of leading Asian and Western brands, this book is packed with illustrative examples, advice and exercises.

Branding in Asia is an invaluable book that is a must for anyone responsible for business growth in the 21st century.

Dr Paul Temporal is Asia's leading expert on brand creation, development and management, having lived in the region for over 14 years. He has worked with leading companies and governments, and is well known his results-oriented and hands-on approach. He is the author of Corporate Charisma.

My expectations were mainly about redressing the balance on geographical origins of brand case studies. Our literature suffers from being far too US centric. This imbalance is unfortunate for several reasons including: - living in the US for the last 2 years has taught me how atypical the US consumer is of any other I have met in 25 countries that I have worked - from the oldest brand models (which assumed brands were advertising led) to the newest ebrand models, there's huge share of voice reflecting the culture of corporate America and the case theories of its business schools. These powerful systems shouldn't be unquestioningly exported as being de facto paradigms for local organisational excellence or social value.

My expectations were exceeded because this book - unlike most on the brand which start with chapters on advertising and marketing communications - opens up from the very beginning on the leadership importance of branding. Here we are on pages 1-2: "Strong brands endure many challenges. This is becoming increasingly relevant in an era of unprecedented change, upheaval and uncertainty. This change is strategic, unlike the incremental change of more predictable times, and therefore requires a strategic response. Brand building is exactly such a response. If successful, it can be the strongest weapon in a company's armory and the best guarantee of corporate survival. The challenge that lies ahead is that of change management.

And by page 4, we're invited to join in a cataloguing of worldwide changes to marketing: -the breakdown of market boundaries -globalization and the development of global brands -increasing market fragmentation -product diversity and shorter life cycles -greater customer sophistication -digital business -economic instability and market volatility

So this book flies, and yet at the same time when you read it you will continually pick up useful advice whether your brain is looking for practical or academic stimulation. For example, the book closes with an appendix of very worthwhile brand exercises, and it resonates with case studies, 24 in all. Each case study ends with a summary of that brand's strengths.

This book will be good for you whether this is the first one you read on branding, or as in my case the twenty first, including two of my own. For example, I learnt a lot from Temporal's consistently strong advice on brand values and the way they shape corporate personality on its outside and inside.

Taken together, the book demionstrates how leading companies are ceasing to be collections of physical capital (Adam Smith's land, labor, and capital), and becoming mental constructs that represent the characteristics of human beings: brands can be trustworthy or not, creative or stable, leading-edge or traditional, conservative or liberal, male or female, and so on. Companies and their brands become complexes of embodied characteristics, as complex as any individual. These qualities become the promise the brand makes to the consumer. As long as the brand lives up to the promise, customers are retained, and so are profits. But if the company violates its brand promises, it betrays its customers and begins to lose them. This book comes at this from many directions, and lacks a clear comprehensive approach, but it is a fascinating sampler.

This anthology, edited by Rita Clifton and John Simmons with Sameena Ahmad, contains an abundance of information about branding. In fact, with 17 contributors, different experts repeat the same information more than once, further emphasizing and validating these points. For example, several contributors note the social value of brands; later, an entire chapter covers the same topic. Some sections delve into the material more deeply than others, but much of it is sophisticated enough to appeal to the most dedicated brand specialist. The book includes discussions of branding esoterica such as the distinction between verbal and visual identities, and the role of brands in a global marketplace. Despite the repetition and the inclusion of some dated studies, we brand this book as an important one for anyone concerned with branding, especially with its new role as a source of financial value.

This book offers a variety of perspectives on brands and branding from several dozen different experts on marketing. I especially enjoyed reading it because most of these experts draw upon experiences outside of the United States. True, core concepts have global relevance but strategies and tactics to create, increase, and leverage brand equity necessarily vary from one marketplace to another. For example, Sameena Ahmad discusses "Globalisation and brands" (Chapter 11), Kim Faulkner examines "Branding in South-East Asia" (Chapter 13), and Simon Anholt offers some valuable insights concerning "Branding places and nations" (Chapter 14). As Patrick Barwise correctly notes in the Preface, if top managers are becoming brand stewards, they must address issues such as:

* Brand measurement, accountability, and understanding
* Brand support
* The brand owner's social and ethical stance
* Making the experience of buying and using brand consistently deliver on the promises made for it

Re this last issue, there is often a substantial gap between promises and performance, especially insofar as service brands are concerned. Hence the importance of eliminating that gap and thereby earn and then sustain consumer trust through performance of the highest possible quality. Once again I am reminded of Warren Buffett's observation that price is what we charge for what we sell but value is what a customer thinks it's worth. The experts whose counsel is included in this volume can, together, help their shared reader to gain a better understanding of issues such as those cited previously as well as (in Barwise's words) "the social and financial value of brands, current best practice in branding, and some of the emerging issues around this important, complex, and ever fascinating topic."

Among the countless value-added benefits provided in this book are various checklists which are included within several of the individual essays. For example, those which suggest the financial uses of brand valuation (page 43), methodologies for brand positioning (page 81), conclusions which can be made about visual and verbal identity and their relationship to brands in the future (pages 125-126), and questions to be addressed insofar as brand protection is concerned (page 168) as well as a recap of the main themes and arguments previously provided in previous chapters (pages 227-229). Of course, it remains for each reader to determine the nature and extent of relevance of the book's 15 chapters. There are many outstanding books on the subject of brands and branding and this is one of the best.

Those who share my high regard for it are urged to check out Levitt's The Marketing Imagination, Paul Nunes and Brian Johnson's Mass Affluence: Seven New Rules of Marketing to Today's Consumer, Alina Wheeler's Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands, Harvard Business Review on Brand Management (The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series), Marc Gobe's Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People, Lynn Parker and F. Joseph Lepla's Integrated Branding: Becoming Brand-Driven Through Company-Wide Action, Simon Anholt's Brand New Justice: The Upside of Global Branding, and Matthew W. Ragas and B.J. Bueno's The Power of Cult Branding: How 9 Magnetic Brands Turned Customers Into Loyal Followers (and Yours Can, Too).

This volume greatly benefits from many different perspectives and authors in tightly written essays that focus on brands, brand management and the future of brands.

Part one examines the definition of what a brand is, the history of brands and the social and economic importance of brands. Many will be intrigued to see that there are now methodologies for valuing brands independently of the operations of the companies that own them. For many public companies, the operating value is relatively slight without the brand values. There are a number of mini cases involving the world's most valuable brands (such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's). This background will be especially relevant to the general reader and for students new to the subject.

Part two looks at brand development and management in detail. This section will be very valuable to those who have not had much experience with brands.

Part three looks at the future of brands. I found this section to be the most interesting as the book looked at issues like the global debate about whether brands "steal" from poor consumers and workers in developing countries, the rise of Asian brands, country branding, adding social agendas to brands and protecting brands from counterfeiters worldwide.

The essays are nicely summarized in Rita Clifton's concluding essay, "The Future of Brands."

Each essay contains many references that can allow those who wish to learn more the pathway to take such steps.

I was pleased to see that the essays did not simply espouse the traditional wisdom on brands, but chose to "push the envelope" to provide more up-to-date and aggressive thinking.

I have a hard time imagining that you could find a better introduction to the subject in such a slim volume.

(From the Department of Marketing, City University of Hong Kong)
If you want to know more about what a brand delivers, you should read this book.
This book introduced 8 brands for Brands in the Marketplace and Brands in the Company respectively, as well as 2 brands for Brands on the Internet and Brands in Society respectively. They all are well-known and successful brands. You can get to know how to establish these brands. Also, through the brands, the owners can convey their values, responsibilities, and commitment concerning community, environment, employees, and society to consumers.

So it is not easy to build up a successful brand. And this book will explore you more about brands.

This is a perfect book to read on a plane - each chapter makes a clear and memorable point. The whole book is based on interviews with top execs of world class brands. Drawbaugh seems to pull out the essence of the brand's situation in a few words at the beginning of the chapter and then the issues come out in a logical order. For example he clarifies the issues Unilever is facing on selecting which of its 1600 brands to focus on. You get the inside track from the guys making the decisions at Caterpillar, Shell, Kellogg, Gucci ... If you are in brands, you'll get value from this book.

Branding is more than creating a catchy slogan or a cute logo. It's hard work and fraught with risk as Kevin Drawbaugh points out in this most readable book. His many case histories from some of the world's top companies make the concept of branding come to life. Managers looking to create, extend, nurture or revitalize a brand would be wise to add this book to their reading list. Marketers, agency creatives and students of marketing and advertising should do the same. The fascinating stories behind the brands are a bonus.

This author has a unique ability to present technical and complex information in a very readable way. As a consumer who rarely thinks of the brands in my life except to look for them on the shelf in the grocery store, I was fascinated by the personal way each case study was presented, as if it were a story of someone I could know, not an impersonal corporation. I recommend this book to anyone who is at all curious about the world of marketing in which we are all active players. Drawbaugh writes with a light touch that makes the most technical information easy to navigate through and yet, clearly backs what he has to say with sound research.

If you collect Chinese labels this is a must have book.

Chinese label art has long been outstanding, so it's surprising that few coverages of Chinese ad art have revealed its history before. CHINESE LABEL ART 1900-1976 provides a fine survey of packaging and labels from the period, pairing stunning images from around China to beyond its borders into Hong Kong and Macau. From tea and medicines to foods, cigarettes, firecrackers and religious items, over 400 color images pair with an authoritative discussion of history and art from Andy Cahan, who has been collecting Chinese ephemera for most of his life.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

In this fantastic work (in all meanings of the word), Cahan opens a door to an utterly unique aesthetic - one most of us have only caught a glimpse of when we set off firecrackers as a child, or wandered through an Asian Food Market - a world of lurid colors and incredibly ornate designs, populated with dragons, temples, bearded Mandarins, strange winged creatures, and smiling sages. An initial epiphany during a celebration of lunar new year in New York's Chinatown when he was an infant led Andrew Cahan into a collecting odyssey - into old shops and factories in the backstreets of the "Chinatowns" of U.S. cities to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taipei. This beautifully printed book is a distillation of the fabulous collection of graphic art Cahan accumulated in his lifetime of collecting. Cahan's insightful commentary on the art illuminates the use of colors, symbols, and designs, as the art evolved in response to religious, political, and cultural influences from both within and outside of the region.
I would like to second the previous reviewer's perceptive and enthusiastic endorsement of this book! The Graphic Arts of China is a delightful and beautiful work of art in itself. Here's an opportunity to learn all about an utterly exotic and previously unexplored cultural phenomenon, while experiencing a vision of a fantastic world, reminiscent of the imaginary China of Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung books. Highly recommended!

Sometimes the best way to understand a culture is to take a deep look at it through a keyhole: the home cooking of French housewives, appreciation for American R&B records in the rural villages of Africa, the flourishing of Yiddish newspapers on the Lower East Side of New York City.

Now Andrew Cahan opens a window to understanding Chinese culture through an unexpected route: the vivid, fantastic, charming, and surprisingly hip label art that appeared on packaging for fireworks, cigarettes, and other consumer products in the early-to-mid 20th Century.

Most of this book, as it should be, is pictures, and what glorious pictures they are! The smiling face of Buddha unexpectedly adorns a pack of firecrackers; an entrancing image of a deer with a pine shoot in its mouth stands before a snowy mountain on a fabric label; one of dozens of happy infant boys raises his hands on a label for "The Baby" cigarettes. Along the way, Cahan offers fascinating insights on the changing social dynamics in China during that tumultuous century, examining gender issues (without getting tedious) and the ways the rise of Communism altered community values (without getting polemical). Along the way, he tells his own story of being a young suburban Jewish kid who was seduced by these brightly colored curiosa on visits to New York's Chinatown. His writing style is warm, elegant, and full of affection for his subject.

For people who collect this stuff, this book is a must-buy. But if I was a young rock star shopping for a killer-hip design for my next CD cover, I'd get a million ideas browsing through this marvelous book.

In one form or another, every one of us is selling--ideas, services, products, maybe a combination of those three. If you want to read a book that presents, in simple language, the contemporary approach to selling, then I recommend CLOSE MORE SALES. The author: Mike Stewart, an international speaker, professional sales trainer and consultant, based in Atlanta.

Far from being an armchair advisor, Mike Stewart spent many years learning salesmanship as a professional sales person. Additionally, he works with a variety of clients, training their sales professionals.

In the preface, he laments that "Almost never are effective selling skills being taught." With this book, he addresses that problem. The book has the approval of the American Management Association, his publisher. I recommend that you get a copy. . .and close more sales.

The best books are the ones that get right to the point and show you step by step what works. This book delivers. I got so many insightful new ideas that I bought copies for everyone in my sales office. At our sales meetings we discussed a different chapter each week. I like Mike Stewart's candor, too. He tells it like it really is.

This book is a must read for any sales professional that wants to close more sales and grow their business.

Mike is a seasoned sales veteran that shares his keen insights with you in this book.

You have two choices. Take years and years to learn what Mike can teach you on your own or buy the book and learn it now!

My recommendation; BUY THE BOOK!

Whether you're new in sales or a seasoned veteran, this book is a treasure. The publisher had to use smaller print just to fit it all in! It's amazing how much information is here-the traditional stuff that you find in most sales books, plus a lot more. And it's all focused on helping you make the sale; the title of Part VII is You Must Close the Sale in Order to Go to the Bank. The message can't be any more clear!

Let's start at the beginning. There are three sections at the start of the book that caught my attention right away. You know there's something special going on when you see sections titled "Why You Need This Book," "Why You Will Love This Book," and "Why an Intelligent, Sophisticated Person Like You Will Appreciate a Simple Book Like This." Simple book? In the fundamental principles that are presented, yes. In the depth and strength of the material, I wouldn't call this book simple. Sales professionals will spend extra time with each section to draw out all the value for themselves. It's just that kind of a book . . . the kind of tool that can be used for reference as well as straight-on learning.

Stewart starts his substance with Position Yourself for Success presented in six chapters. The last chapter of the section is focused on closing. Part II: Develop Rapport and Build Relationships of Trust and Confidence: four chapters ending with emphasis on closing more sales. Continue through sections on pre-call planning, prospect involvement, discovery, presentations, and handling objections. Want more? A good resource section and an index complement the powerful content.

If you want to close sales, not just make sales calls, make friends with this book. Renowned sales trainer Mike Stewart has stuffed all of his seminar material into 250 pages for you to absorb and apply for higher achievement.

I am setting up a small consulting business and found The Consultant's Manual by Thomas L. Greenbaum to be extremely informative and quite valuable in the detail that it provided on the planning and implementation of a successful consulting business. It was highly recommended by my colleagues and friends. I would pass that recommendation on to anyone who is in the process of setting up a consulting business.

Making money as a consultant means meeting prospective clients who are decision makers within their businesses and standing by your fees, because you never know when competition and technology will get the better of you. Also, it means getting business prospects to think of you, not only as a customer of advertising and print shops, but as a breadwinner too who likes cashing regular paychecks. You can get paid to make business-boosting connections by appearing on radio and television, giving industry and trade talks, teaching courses, and writing articles and books.

So Thomas L. Greenbaum is particularly helpful on the financial side of becoming a consultant. His book, THE CONSULTANT'S MANUAL, makes consulting dreams come true, along with Geoffrey M. Bellman's THE CONSULTANT'S CALLING, Herman Holtz's THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO CONSULTING CONTRACTS, Peter Meyer's GETTING STARTED IN COMPUTER CONSULTING, Janet Ruhl's THE COMPUTER CONSULTANT'S GUIDE, and Howard Shenson and Ted Nicholas' THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO CONSULTING SUCCESS.

It doesn't come with a free CD, accompanying website or an appendix of checklists. There's not even a photo of the author. It's not about how to consult (the part you're excited about!), it is, rather, about how to run your consulting business for a living (the part you're not particularly excited about, but is necessary). Based on Greenbaum's Harvard consulting course (which is what attracted me to the text, along with, honestly, its affordability), the subtitle "A Complete Guide to Building a Successful Consulting Practice," really sums it up. Just because you have a developed area of expertise does not mean you will be a successful consultant from your own financial perspective. You have to manage and grow your business.

A business plan is just as important for a service business as for a product-based enterprise; perhaps even more so. A carefully constructed image ("company identity") including promotional materials parallels development of an effective business plan. A personal selling strategy needs to be in place, including details of billing and contracting, before you begin, or at least get in too far. The chapter on "Planning Your Company's Finances" was of particular interest to me, since it is often taboo in casual conversation among colleagues.

I initially thought the author was extremely hard-sell, but to be successful long-term, confidence and forethought are essential. Competition is fierce in many fields, and you need to get and keep your slice of the target market pie. As I read further, reality set in, and this book is reality and experience-based.

Be honest, and go for win-win situations; you are in business to make money by providing honest, consistent, quality customer service. The last few chapters, particularly the chapter on ethics, provide nice segue to perhaps another book.

For the money, this is a good survival manual from the consultant's point of view for a beginner or a professional already in the field. It's an easy read meshing the marketing and business principles you'll need to supplement your given areas of expertise. For more complete (and pricey, but worth it if you're serious) information and advice, check out Elaine Beich "The Business of Consulting and Beyond" and/or Peter Block's "Flawless Consulting" sets of workbooks/case studies plus texts.

L'expert-conseil se trouve couronne de succes lorsqu'il fait bien son boulot et, tres important, lorsqu'il ne bouge pas sur les honoraires a recevoir. Il ne faut jamais oublier que les clients sont des decisives chez eux, qu'ils cherchent toujours a minimiser les frais et maximiser le travail des autres. Alors il vaut mieux demander les honoraires les plus hauts possibles parce que la concurrence et la technologie, ca change tout vite. Il y a des instants ou l'expert-conseil devient lui-meme client payant, c'est-a-dire dans les imprimeries et les agences de publicite. Ces fois-ci il n'a qu'a se presenter comme chef de famille, un gagne-pain comme tout le monde qui a des frais et qui a donc besoin des jours de paye toutes les quinzaines. L'expert-conseil arrive a attirer les clients et, tres important, en reste paye, lorsqu'il passe a la radio et a la tele, parle aux reunions des gens de l'industrie et des affaires, enseigne des classes du soir, ou bien ecrit des articles et des livres.

Copywriting giants deserve equally large books to showcase them, so this Copy Book is the perfect literary wax museum to learn more about some of the advertising industry's greats. In it, you can almost, just almost, get into the minds of legends like Neil French, David Abbott and many others, and possibly get a glimpse into how their minds work and what makes them tick. Besides their professional advice, you might get some inspiration from the award-winning advertisement classics (check out the infamous Volk Wagon and Stella Atois ads) that accompany each of these wordsmiths. (The price is) worth every cent of it.

Sitting on my shelf are, oh, about 30 books on advertising. Maybe more. Ironically, "The Copy Book" isn't one of them -- it's too damn large! So it lays kinda slouched against the wall. But not for long, 'cos that baby tends to spend an obscene amount of time in my hands. And yes, as some other reviewer points out, Neil French is in sparkling form -- what's new? --, dispensing advice you wouldn't read about (Australian expression) -- except here. Abbott ... amazing. Steve Henry. Jim Durfee. Richard Foster (great essay!) They're all here and more. A must-read several times over. Ads are a little dated, but so what? The advice is priceless.

I read a copy of this book that belongs to my CD and quite frankly,I was awestruck. Been looking for my own ever since. You'll find all the writers you admire in there. Neil French in his element, David Abbott,name them, all the superstars telling you how they do it. And how not to do it. An unputdownable read for all in this noble profession, very inspiring.

Tired of advertising books that are big on art, but short on copy - full of page-shots where the body copy's been reduced or screened beyond legibility?

The Copy Book, by Alastair Crompton ("The Art of Copywriting") is different. In it, 32 top advertising writers share their views on how they write, and what makes a great ad.

It's full of good advice, and full of very good - and awarded - ads. Some of them are even long-copy!

This is beginning to sound like an ad. I'm not getting paid, so I'll stop.

Vaughn Davis
Auckland, New Zealand

I work for a book summary company. One of the books selected for summary is this book.

This book by former creative director of the renowned ad firm, Saatchi & Saatchi, lays out 10 lessons to follow in order to promote any brand. Although the author himself acknowledges that creativity knows no rules, the 10 lessons are offered as basic framework for structuring advertising creativity. But what is more interesting than these 10 rules are the many perceptive insights that he offers by delineating on the advertising campaigns undertaken by Saatchi & Saatchi, enumerating the process involved in creativity and the behind-the-scene actions pertaining to each project. He regales us with asides, the many advertising wars over products and clients, examples of shocking ads that redefined advertising creativity and several great quotations from literary and artistic innovators and thinkers, all of which provide us with an engaging repast. In fact, it is these captivating interludes that make the book really valuable than the lessons that he offers. By giving interesting case studies, he unveils the grueling creative process involved in each advertising process and brand making. More than anything the book helps us to adopt a new creative approach to advertising. You don't really have to belong to the advertising world, or even be in sales or marketing, just anybody reading this book is sure to find in it a delightful book worth possessing.

"Creative Leaps" is a smart and compelling book not only for someone interested in the advertising industry, but for anyone interested in the creative process in general. Michael Newman breaks down and demystifies creativity, making it an accessible tool for anyone-not just the creative director of one of the leading advertising agencies in the world. Through step by step lessons, and even suggestions on how to foster the creative process in the office, Newman engages the reader from the first page.

The ten lessons stated in the title seem like a neat and tidy number that understates the magnitude of the advice that Newman relates to the reader. He includes teachings not only from his own personal experiences, but through a multitude of quotations and anecdotes from famous great thinkers of the world as well. It also doesn't hurt that Newman spearheaded and masterminded some of the greatest advertisements that the industry has known, and gives the reader a chance to see how great ads like this come about. Through photographs and case studies the reader gains a private look into what may have seemed like the impossible. Newman's lessons, which are present on every page, ground the innovation and creativity that went on behind the scenes at Saatchi & Saatchi. Teachings in simplicity, the power of feelings, the power of visuals, and the power of just one word are all aspects of the creative process that the reader can take away from this book.

Most importantly, Newman teaches those in the media world how to stand out in a completely cluttered and saturated environment. His lessons do not just teach and deconstruct creativity, they provide a framework for the process that leads to advertisements that do not merely add to the noise, but break through it. His step by step analysis of the Toyota HiLux "Bugger" Ad relays how to be original and unique in an industry that is constantly outdoing itself. Newman convinces the reader that he is in the know merely through his style of writing, which is witty, succinct, and intelligent. Furthermore, he makes a point in the introduction of the book that his teachings are to be built upon, standing by the quote he uses at one point in the book that, "None of us is as smart as all of us." Essentially, this is a must read, because Newman sells his teachings as well as he sells his ads.

This may be one of the best books about creativity, brands and advertising ever written. Author Michael Newman's long, successful tenure with Saatchi and Saatchi, one of the most innovative ad firms in the world, is itself impressive. He knows how to get attention in a market where attention is a scarce resource. His so-called "ten lessons in effective advertising," really ten ideas about creativity, are unnecessary devices, probably a framework forced on a good book by an unimaginative editor. Read this book instead for the chrestomathy of quotations from literary and artistic innovators and thinkers. Read it for the asides, the tangents, the advertising war stories and the rambles. Read it for the shocking ads that push past the bounds of what anyone would consider acceptable. We recommend you read it for pleasure and for all these reasons; you'll get a lot more than ten lessons.

That's the message I delightfully took away from this absolutely wonderful, well written and very unique book. But alas, there is so much more.

As a proud member of the advertising club, I have long believed in stirring the pot and not looking like everyone else. But I've never read a book that presented it so eloquently as Creative Leaps by Michael Newman.

Newman tells it like it is about clients who butt in and create more problems than they help solve. Ditto for others who involve themselves in the creative process. He shows by demonstration how to create ads that work, that stand out and that sell like hell.

I also admit that, even with some thirty years of solid experience under my belt, I got some new (to me) and very helpful ideas. This book was worth twice what I paid for it.

I highly recommend this book to anyone in advertising, especially copywriters and creative directors. But also to anyone who might hire an ad agency or copywriter. It will help them to understand the creative process and to appreciate it more; to allow their creatives more freedom and to get the hell out of the way.

In fact, this book is totally different from any book about advertising or copywriting I've ever read and I totally love it. It will stay in my personal library. (No, I won't be selling it on Amazon like I do most of my books.) It will get read again and again and used as a reference for years to come.

Highly recommended.

Susanna K. Hutcheson
Owner & Creative Director
Powerwriting.com LLC