Unravels the creative processes behind some of the most original and effective advertising campaigns in recent years. Pricken showcases over 200 examples of international advertising from a wide range of media including magazines and billboards, television, cinema and the Internet.

2007-12-22 Pick of the bunch for advertisers

Which book to buy on advertising?

If you are interested as a lay person in understanding how advertisers work, then "Ogilvy on Advertising" probably can't be beaten -- even though it's quite a few years old now.
If you want to understand the history of advertising, then "Twenty Ads that Shook the World" is pretty good.
If you are a student, then "The fundamentals of creative advertising" is a good place to begin.
If you just want a really beautiful (and inspiring) book, then "Advertising - new techniques for visual seduction" is superb.

However, if you are an advertiser, and you want to raise your game, maybe to the world-class, this book is the pick of the bunch. It organises its obligatory (and delicious) pictures of successful ads around the creative process that led to them. The largest section, "The Kickstart Catalogue", gives a "kickstart question" to go with every ad presented. This neatly gets beyond the great frustration of looking at advertising books -- they tell you want wonderful ideas have been used, and are therefore no longer available. Although you can't steal the ad, you can use the kickstart question, such as "How can a benefit be represented by showing the opposite of what people expect?"

The Kickstart catalogue occupies 150 of 264 pages. There are also good sections on developing the creative team, on humour, on classic creative techniques and on visualisation, as well as a useful section of interviews and resources.

If you just like reading books about advertising, this is probably a nice book to have on your coffee table. If you make your living from advertising creativity, this is probably a book you will want to keep on your desk.