Advertising Books

I buy these books every year and they get better all the time. I find this series more useful than most as each picture has info on medium used and original artwork size. Lots of inspiration to be had!

As someone who has been in retail for 20 years, I get tired of authors showing businesses manipulating, deceiving and hoodwinking the public to create demand. The reality is far more complex and what most businesses really do is spend enormous energy trying to figure out what consumers want so they can give it to them. Blaszczyk understands this. The book is series of case studies in the glass and ceramics industries that show the intersections between R&D and marketing, retailers and manufacturers, and creative types and middle managers, all of which is dedicated to trying to figure out what consumers want in an endless feedback loop. While the focus of the book is on the 19th and early 20th centuries, the examination of the process of innovation is timeless.

A special segment of marketing discipline, aesthetics, has seem to be neglected for decades. The arcane world of the aesthetic markets is still covered with veins. The pricing and judgmental criteria of an art work were prosperous beyond the theoretical research. Brown's work open an systematic windows in the imaging marketing.

How children are effected by the commercials? What kind of advertisements do children like? Which ages are more effected ? How parents react to their children's requirements? Do commercials create a standard consuming profile to children?

This is a solid basic handbook on how to develop your staff through training, coaching, and mentoring. Patrick Forsyth rightly keeps things focused on results and presents his material clearly and concisely. You get eight chapters of ten to twenty pages on each topic. They are:
1) Why development is your road to success
2) Why development is a management responsibility
3) What development requires you to do
4) On-the-job coaching
5) Formal (think classroom) training - content and method
6) Formal training - how to run your class
7) Formal training - getting everyone to participate
8) How to assess your coaching, mentoring, and training efforts.

A pretty good basic guide that provides more content than many longer and more fluffy books.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Did you know that to achieve a trendy pale complexion during in the Middle Ages, women applied blood-sucking leeches to their faces? Or that it was fashionable in China for women to bind and crush their feet to demonstrate grace and wealth?

The award-winning book "In Your Face: The Culture of Beauty and You" presents what humanity has done over the years and in various cultures to, as the author puts it, "fit in, stick out, or measure up."

"In Your Face" also explains why we place so much importance on appearances, who gets to decide what's hot and what's not, and what forces shape our views about beauty. This fact-filled book examines the lessons we learn from fairy tales, ancient mythology, popular movies and magazines regarding beauty, youth and attractiveness. We hear from models and actors about what it's like to be judged by their looks, and learn how businesses and people get rich by making others feel insecure. "In Your Face" brings us stories we may not hear elsewhere, and helps us put beauty into perspective so we can stop feeling so controlled and influenced by it. Fun, helpful tips for coping with the pressures around looks also appear at the end of each chapter.

"In Your Face's" many startling examples of what females (and males!) did and do in the pursuit of beauty show how one single definition of beauty doesn't exist; that what is considered beautiful comes and goes with time; that many cosmetic procedures can be dangerous; and that seeing beyond the surface can give us the inspiration to care about things that matter much more--such as feeling good about who we truly are inside, and what we can accomplish in this world.

This book offers a great history of Industrial Design through the eyes of modern Industrial Designer, Raymond Loewy. I really liked the pictures that take up over half of the book which really emphasize the role that design has played in modern life. Each set of pictures has a detailed description of the what Loewy's connection with it was and how he went about designing it.

The author doesn't pull any punches. From telling you to throw out the new products list, to celebrating failures, to laying innovation responsibility in the lap of the CEO, he gets right to the point about what has to happen for innovation to suceed and thrive in any company. Great organization, step by step here is what you have to do, emphasis on quantifying results and great analogies makes this book valuable and easy to read. More importantly, you can use it to get innovation started today. Page after page gives the reader insights into "so that's why innovation is not working in my company". Finally, focus on long term senior management leadership and risk taking for sucessful innovation shows that the author writes from hard won experience. Sucessful innovation is an increasing part of every company's future and this book belongs in your toolkit.

The following are testimonials written by former clients:

"One of the best business decisions I ever made was letting Jeff Hauser design my Yellow Pages ad programs. The results were far more profitable than anything I had done before. I highly recommend that you trust his judgment. I do."

- Bob Cunningham, owner of "Exercise Equipment of Arizona" in Phoenix and Scottsdale

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"Jeff was my directory rep for fifteen years and handled my large and expansive program. I recommend him as an expert consultant & honest colleague."

- Pat Mulqueen, owner of "Singer Sales
Centers"

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"My wife and I started up our A/C & appliance service company over 20 years ago with one truck, and two phones. Jeff Hauser was our first yellow page rep. We planned out our first advertising strategy with him in 1986. Over that time, our company expanded into two states. Jeff helped us keep our yellow page advertising up to date and on the
cutting edge. With his experience and insight of the Yellow Page business, you can take any advice Jeff offers, to the bank."

-Larry Calloway, owner of "Valley Services" an a/c & appliance repair firm in Mesa, AZ

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"I had several YP reps before Jeff and my ad was just okay. When Jeff took over my account he took it to another level. Jeff took a personal interest in designing & creating my ad to make it the most distinguished and interesting in the book. After 18 years using the same one, I still get compliments. "

Carol Hall, owner of "The Flower Shoppe" Tempe, AZ

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"Jeff Hauser's decades of experience and artistic abilities helped our insurance company substantially increase sales and net profits.
The number of phone call's from our yellow page advertising rose more than 100% and our return on investment increased 200%. Jeff helped our company capture our "target market" customers while keeping our advertising costs to a small percentage of our total sales.

- Dominic Gervasi, owner of "Insurance Referral Service," Tempe, AZ

As Tom Fischgrund says in THE INSIDER'S GUIDE TO THE TOP 20 CAREERS IN BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT, a good job pays for the lifestyle you want, lets you have a personal life that gets you involved in community charities and sports, and takes you where you want to be over the next 20 years. One of the best preparations is interning while studying accounting and finance, juggling a co-op work program with school such as engineering students do, and looking for companies with training programs such as General Mills, large insurance companies, Procter & Gamble, and Quaker Oats. Then, speaking and writing well and getting along with computers, numbers, and especially people will open the best companies' doors. Succeeding also will mean dressing for success, keeping current on office politics and world trends, knowing company decision makers and industry and trade publications, and meeting deadlines while showing up early and doing what the company sees as important to get done. This book reads well with Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz's THE 100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR IN AMERICA.