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Ad Books

These are books that we've actually read, rated, interviewed the authors of or sometimes simply reviewed - if you fancy a peek we've included excerpts so you can 'taste' the writing before deciding if the book is something for you. Browse the book before you buy it. If you have a book you wish us to review, contact adland's hostmaster at hostmaster - at - adland.tv

Luke Sullivan's childhood had insanity, addiction, and Rock 'n' Roll

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Posted by dabitch on 27. April 2011 - 4:58
Image of Thirty Rooms To Hide In: Insanity, Addiction, and Rock 'n' Roll in the Shadow of the Mayo Clinic

Most of us weren't blessed with a perfect childhood. Some of us developed self-defense gallows humor as defense, and Luke Sullivan is one of them. He explains:

I often describe the books story as “The Shining, but … funnier.” It's the story of growing up with my five brothers in a big house in Minnesota back in the days of Eisenhower and Kennedy. Yet even with winters raging outside and our father raging within, our mother's protection allowed us to have a wildly fun, thoroughly dysfunctional time growing up.

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Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet

dabitch's picture
Posted by dabitch on 22. July 2009 - 18:16
Image of Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet

"With a unique blend of humor and insight, Othmer guides us through this rapidly changing business and lets us see the direction in which it is headed. A must read for any student of advertising."
-- Rick Boyko, Director, VCU Brandcenter

"Advertising is an industry like any other, except it changes our planet daily. James Othmer, one of my favorite writers, takes you inside that world and makes the people and places real. You can dislike these guys, but you can't ignore them. They make sure of that."
  --Seth Godin, author, TRIBES

"I've been in advertising more than twenty years and spent countless hours trying to tell people how insane and hilarious and exciting and pointless and fascinating it all is. Now all I have to do is hand them this book."
-Jamie Barrett,
Creative Director/Partner Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco

"Othmer's struggle to do the next right thing in a business predicated on greed, lust, envy and sloth makes for an enlightening
as well as entertaining read."
                                                                    -Steffan Postaer
                                                                    Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, 
                                                                    Euro RSCG Chicago

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Ad Nauseam: the back to school book for budding ad-cynics.

dabitch's picture
Posted by dabitch on 31. July 2009 - 19:30
Image of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture

Thanks to Carrie McLaren I got myself a copy of the Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture as seen here on the left, posing on a pile of sick bags with genuine falafal fat stains on it. (Yes, I have collected several hundred sick bags, if you haven't noticed by now, all signs point to me being a packrat on my way to rivaling the Collyer brothers)

If you have been an avid reader of StayFree magazine like myself, don't worry there's fresh data in here to feast on mixed in with some of their best articles. If you've never read StayFree magazine, it's a bit like adbusters. Sure the authors bemoan the advertising seeping into every pore of our culture, but at the same time they are fascinated by it, armed with wit and plenty of research. Those who have followed adland for as long as I have written it will find ad creep and other phenomena as familiar faces in here, all helping to paint a bigger picture of what advertising and consumer culture is doing to our society as a whole. The whole book is funny, subversive and eye-opening - if you've had them closed that is.

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Inventing Desire

dabitch's picture
Posted by dabitch on 2. March 2000 - 1:00
Image of Inventing Desire: Inside Chiat/Day : The Hottest Shop, the Coolest Players, the Big Business of Advertising

Dick Sittig took his girlfriend to Cannes in late June for the International Advertising Film Festival - a pleasant enough break from the Nissan Fantasy campaign, particularly since the Energizer Bunny campaign Sittig had devised was favored to win the Grand Prix over almost two thousand other entries. Sittig was ready to celebrate. He checked into a $700-a-night hotel room, ate his share of cracked lobster claws, and waited for the official good news.

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Adcult USA and Ogilvy On Advertising

dabitch's picture
Posted by dabitch on 16. July 2007 - 11:07
Image of Ogilvy on Advertising

From "Adcult USA" and "Oglivy On Advertising"
about Subliminal Advertising.
"ADCULT USA"

By James B. Twitchell
Where's The Beef?
The subliminal explanation of Advertising

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Creative Company: how St Luke's became the ad agency to end all ad agencies.

dabitch's picture
Posted by dabitch on 23. June 2002 - 19:45
Image of Creative Company: How St. Luke's Became "the Ad Agency to End All Ad Agencies"

Chapter 18 : Culture

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Bluff Your way in Advertising!

dabitch's picture
Posted by dabitch on 15. July 1997 - 12:07
Image of Bluff Your Way in Advertising (The Bluffer's Guides)

In this small book, you can learn the lingo, who’s who in the mess of mystery advertising agency titles, and how to panic appropriately during deadlines. Like all Bluff books it’s very funny, and sometimes so true it’s scary.

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Herman Vaske interviews Tim Mellors

dabitch's picture
Posted by dabitch on 20. July 2000 - 18:40
Image of Standing on the Shoulder of Giants: Hermann Vaske's Conversations with the Masters of Advertising

It's only advertising. Nobody gets killed. The old saying about boxing champions "They never come back" does not apply to advertising. At the beginning of the seventies, Tim Mellors was the beloved wunderkind of British advertising. Then Mellors went into directing and failed. After an attempt to set up his own consultancy, which went bankrupt, Mellors ended up in the world of alcohol and drugs. Seven years back, Charles Saatchi and Jeremy Sinclair got the prodigal son back into their office.

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Shocker: Copywriter writes book ... set in advertising.

dabitch's picture
Posted by dabitch on 18. January 2013 - 22:15
Image of Truth in Advertising: A Novel

Like the novel "E" by Matt Beaumont this fictional book is set in the advertising business, but "Truth in advertising" also deals with some serious issues.

Finbar Dolan is lost and lonely, had feet so cold he called off a wedding, and now has to call off his vacation to write and edit a super bowl spot about diapers in record time. Then things get worse. His once abusive father falls ill, his siblings do not intend to visit, and just what in the hell is Finbar really doing with his life? Shilling diapers!

This is not the trailer for the book.

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George Lois, What's the big Idea?

dabitch's picture
Posted by dabitch on 20. September 2000 - 1:00
Image of WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? (That Sell!)

'You'd be paranoic too if people were out to get you!' by George Lois. From the book; What's the big idea?

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