Book review: Bang! Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World.

 

Bang! Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World. Linda Kaplan Thaler, Robin Koval, Delia Marshall. Doubleday. 256 pages (Click here or on the cover image to purchase this book.) BY RICHARD PACHTER Originally published on Monday, October 27, 2003 in The Miami Herald. Hey you! Pay attention! If only it were that easy. For advertising, the challenge is attracting eyes, ears and imaginations to inspire purchases. But in a world of competing messages, cutting through the clutter is nearly impossible. Now more than ever we are inured to most advertising, yet somehow ads do get through to their target audience and are effective. They are remembered, discussed, and even move merchandise. How is this alchemy possible? There have been a number of recent books advising marketers in these endeavors, including Seth Godin's Purple Cow and Mark Stevens' Your Marketing Sucks, but it has always been tough creating ads that work. It's harder now, since customers' time and attention is severely diffused and limited. Advertising executives Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, aided by writer Delia Marshall, contribute a bright, breezy, but deadly serious guide to creating a buzz -- and a bang. They possess more credibility than many other authors; their agency is responsible for some of the most impressive, high-impact ads seen in recent years: Clairol's Herbal Essence Shampoo, AFLAC Insurance, Toys R Us, the Red Cross and more. And how does one make effective ads? They write: "According to The Economist magazine, people see over 3,000 messages each day but, like cooked spaghetti, only a couple of them stick to the wall. As a result, no one is sitting on the edge of his or her seat waiting to hear what you have to say. You need to disrupt the established paradigm to get through. Edward De Bono, the father of lateral thinking, noted that problem solving involves abandoning accepted, logical thought processes and rearranging and reevaluating the status quo. You must forget about what makes sense and open yourself up to the real reason why a particular brand or product is appealing. Great, explosive marketing or advertising ideas will only rise to the surface when everyone at the company is able to reject what worked in the past and embrace this kind of counterintuitive thinking.'" In other words, emotion beats logic, and a product or service's true ''Unique Selling Proposition'' is often counter to what the company thinks it is. The smart solution is not always the obvious one (and it's sometimes the dumbest one imaginable). This is not entirely new; advertising guru David Ogilvy would surely agree with much of what they say. Rather, Thaler and Koval adapt many of the strongest, most basic principles of marketing and promotion to modern media realities and aesthetics, and they provide plenty of anecdotes and examples to make the journey a pleasant one. Can you apply their approach specifically to your business? Perhaps, but even if you can't, their freewheeling and challenging notions will surely stimulate your own thoughts, and you may come up with your own marketing eruption.

Worse to Worst

Serious effort in the humorous series is a good effort but hardly revelatory

BY RICHARD PACHTER

The Worst-Case Scenario Business Survival Guide: How to Survive the Recession, Handle Layoffs, Raise Emergency Cash, Thwart an Employee Coup, and Avoid Other Potential Disasters. David Borgenicht, Mark Joyner. Wiley. 208 pages

How about starting a new job and on the third day, you arrive at work to discover that the building is surrounded by police cars? Shocked, you wonder if the joint was robbed but soon learn from a stern cop that the company is accused of criminal activities. Or another gig where the owner ushers you into his office and asks you to accompany him to a business meeting with a competitor. On the car ride to their site, he announces that he’s going to pitch them on acquiring his company! Those are two screwy situations that yours truly encountered that may not be “worst-case” scenarios, but neither are most of the relatively typical business problems depicted in this short and amusing little book.
Previously, books in the “Worst-Case” series offered humorous and straight-faced advice for dealing with obviously over-the-top situations — how to jump from a bridge or a cliff into a river; how to survive if trapped in a lion’s cage; how to escape from a giant octopus — accompanied by retro-ish illustrations that evoked hokey how-to manuals from eras past.

It was a winning formula, apparently, as a stream of follow-ups and brand extensions appeared, including a TV special. I haven’t read every volume, but my sense is that each took a similarly light and frivolous approach to the issues, even if some weren’t very serious themselves, like surviving a zombie attack.

This new volume is VERY SERIOUS, however, and emphatically states so in both forwards by each of the authors of record. With no less than 25 “experts” weighing in with their advice, the pair, I’d guess, probably did the book’s outline and final rewrites. But this veritable Justice League Unlimited of kibitzers must’ve come up with a lot of stuff that was sliced, diced and concentrated to fit snugly into a book of just under 200 pages of text. But that’s still a lot of serious!

Regardless, the book is divided into five chapters of “emergencies”: Financial, HR, Productivity, Sales and Marketing, and Executive, with a “Basic Training” summation at the end of each chapter. The presentation is pleasant enough and the intermittent appearance of Colin Hayes’ beautifully deadpan line art will elicit a chuckle or two. The advice is solid, simple and un-surprising. If you possess a minimal amount of common sense, you’ll know this stuff cold. If you’re just starting out in the world, this might be a useful book to study or one to bequeath upon a clueless co-worker who aspires toward management. Please be careful; if you hand it to an actual manager they may be insulted — and you could be mortally wounded — or your career will be. But it’s immeasurably more constructive than any cheesy, rodent-infested pop parable or other well meaning but quintessentially vapid folderol. And if you need a stocking stuffer or a present for a holiday office gift exchange, you can pick up a copy for under 12 bucks on Amazon.com, which will undoubtedly aid in surviving, at the very least, that potential disaster.

FAs without the Qs

Back when I reviewed biz books for the Miami Herald, I'd get — as you'd imagine — numerous inquiries from publishers, authors, publicists and others who wanted me to review their books.

Some were quite professional, generally because they were from professionals, but others were a bit ham-handed and many asked my help to "promote their book in the Miami Herald"(!)

Rather than respond to each entreaty, I put together a kind of boilerplate response, which I honed and revised many times, as needed.

I've never shared this online, but was thinking about it today and thought, why not?

So, here it is.

FAQ for Publicists, Publishers and Authors

Thanks for your e-mail about your book.

Here are a few things you might find helpful.

First of all, I review business books usually intended for a general business audience. I avoid technical volumes, most business-to-business books, self-help, diets, pop psychology, inspirational, religious, spiritual, sports, celebrity bios, novels, fables, humor, parables and such. (There are exceptions, but not often!) CEO memoirs and the like are iffy, but not entirely out of the question.

I love books and language, and am endlessly interested in all forms of business, as it's a vital aspect of human culture.

That's why I review business books.

If you want your book considered for review, you need not ask me before sending a copy. It's an extra and unnecessary step.

I receive many books every day — more than I can possibly review — so if you think yours is a candidate, just send it. My address is below.

If you are not sure if the book is right, please take a moment to scan my previous reviews. The links are below. The Miami Herald site requires registration. My own (admittedly incomplete) sites, http://www.wordsonwords.com and http://www.richardpachter.com do not.

I like books offering fresh ideas that can be applied to a variety of businesses and situations.

Your book must be new, and available in bookstores and from normal online merchants (Amazon.com, BN.com etc.) and not just through your own web site or 800 number. 

I'll sometimes review a book AND the CD audio version. Feel free to send both, if you like.

I don't (can't) return phone calls. You may always follow up with me by e-mail. I try to respond promptly, but this is not my full-time gig, unfortunately, and my "real" job takes up the majority of my time and attention.

I don't review unpublished manuscripts or provide my "professional opinion" about something I'm not reviewing, and can offer no advice on agents, publishers, editors etc.

I rarely do author interviews unless there are strong local South Florida connections, and even that's no guarantee.

I don't need any canned reviews, have no say about anything else in the paper and think that poetry is a huge scam, so don't send me any poems (pretty please!)

I also review graphic novels on a monthly basis for The Herald. From time to time, I write about other stuff, but it's not worth pitching me on anything, since I have more ideas than time to execute them.

Thanks for reading. (Any implied grouchiness herein is certainly not directed at you! I promise.)


xxx
rap
Richard Pachter
----
This FAQ is covered by a Creative Commons license.