Three Books to the Wind

I don't know how but I have managed to find the time to read quite a bit in the past few weeks, and I am damn glad that I did. In a combined three days, I digested the pages of two books (well, one was on Kindle of iPad) am currently wrapping up my third.


The first was Brandwashed, written by former marketing guru now turned consumer advocate, Martin Lindstrom. He looks into and exposes all sorts of crazy marketing ploys and techniques - from data mining to prenatal exposure - used on consumers by big companies today, especially retail and grocery chains. I felt as if I were almost betraying the industry by reading this but I think it provided a good lesson on transparency. It also gave great insight to consumer behavior which (for the strategist in me) was just as exciting and wondrous as the tactics themselves.

While looking at my empty Kindle library, I realized that I was not getting the most out of my iPad user experience, so I began to shop. I stumbled upon the eBook version of George Parker's Confessions of a Mad Man. The summary describes Parker as one of the few surviving mad men who "has seen it all and done it all." It goes on to state, "a great deal of what he has seen and done would make the current TV show; “Mad Men,” look like Sesame Street"and boy was that right. He reams the "Big Dumb Agencies" (BDA's) in nearly every chapter while managing to use the phrases "cockney gits" and "douchenozzle" just as frequently, yet there is a lot to learn from his wisdom. If your in advertising, or just a fan of English humor in general, chances are you will dig this book and have a hard time putting it down. Check out his blog AdScam/TheHorror! too, it will rock your little socks off.

While I am still in the process of reading Alison Fendley's Saatchi & Saatchi: An Inside Story, I figured I'd share it anyway. It is a simple read about an extraordinary duo, Charles and Maurice Saatchi, and their contributions to the ad world and absurdly expensive way of living. It chronicles the shareholder revolt to remove the brothers from the company they built from the ground up.