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Summary: About to enter the advertising world? READ THIS!
Review: "But the graphs showed... the numbers revealed..." Quantitative research has its place in the advertising world, but all too often this (traditional) research is simply used as a way to cover your a**. One of the many, many things Jon Steel's book taught me was the importance of establishing a relationship with the consumer in order to produce effective advertising. Steel's writing style is humorous & incredibly easy to follow; he makes you comfortable. This book will educate & entertain you at the same time. As a recent college grad entering the advertising world, I found this book to be invaluable. (It means as much to me as "The Fountainhead" means to architects.) It will give you insight into the industry, but more importantly, it will give you confidence. Common sense is something we all possess, but are often afraid to use. I hope there will be a sequel!
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Summary: The quintessential resource for understanding planning.
Review: A must read for anyone who aspires to inspire great creativity. Jon Steel's explaination and demonstration of what Account Planning is, how it works and the power it provides to facilitate great creativity is nothing short of inspiring. His dry wit combined with clear defference to other who have contributed to the foundation of the discipline; those who have assisted in his development and those put the theory into practice today is a fresh departure from the other advertsing industry PR hounds and frontrunners who purport to be the best the profession has to offer. Clear, incisive, and directional this book will help and guide those who are questioning and curious about Planning and the power it provides as the underpinnings of great creative. A must read for anyone who aspires to inspire great creativity. I'll be lining up when is the next volume is coming out?!?
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Summary: A solid contributioon to the field of account planning.
Review: A Review: Truth, Lies and Advertising by Jon Steel. Wiley, 1998. Written and Submitted by Neal M. Burns, Department of Advertising University of Texas at Austin What a book Jon Steel has written! It is lively, intelligent and in chapter after chapter it showcases his analytical ability as well as his commitment to finding the basis for some of the best advertising we have seen. Steel is the consummate planner and his writing reflects the thought processes and the workings of an agency that has claimed and kept the strategic high ground. It is the firm so many of us envy and the one our students want to join. Truth, Lies and Advertising is , in short, a wonderful book written by an Englishman about what may be -- or clearly was at one point in time -- the best agency in America. Steel uses his agency as a vehicle to describe the process and orientation of account planning and advertising. In that authorship lies both the many strengths and the occasional weakness of Truth, Lies and Advertising. Steel understands the importance of relationships when he describes the nature of exploring the consumer, the brand and the societal framework in which it all takes place. In his discussion Steel recognizes the monumental contributions of Bill Bernbach and the influence his work had on the awareness of the consumer as an intelligent and sympathetic target. Steel suggests that the resulting humanity and sensitivity that Bernbach's work produced had a significant impact on the thought processes of British advertising agencies and, in fact, helped spawn a new discipline known as account planning. The emphasis was clear: the advertising industry needed to gain insight into human nature so that it could create ads that spoke to their target and were perceived as being relevant. By recalling a brilliant little adage Steel reminds his readers that the way in which the target feels about the ad and interacts with it characterizes gre! at advertising: when baiting a trap with cheese always leave room for the mouse! The book itself reflects this principle and the reader will enjoy the sense of discovery and enlightenment that accompanies one's interaction with it. Steel's style and ready reference to key issues and personal experiences further enhance the advertising wisdom this book delivers. In addition to the wonderful "got milk" case Steel's best moment in the book for this reader is the discipline and use he provides for the creative brief. For Steel the single purpose of making the advertising better -- of getting the advertising right -- is the potent driving force for the brief. It is not, Steel admonishes us, merely a series of questions that must be asked in a particular order or the submission of enough weighty evidence to justify a doctoral dissertation. Rather, the brief is the synthesis of the planner's works and thoughts represented in a solid fashion that -- ideally -- becomes the doorway for the creative process. Steel's appreciation of research may appear mysterious to those less familiar with the rather doctrinaire approach of many British planners to quantitative methodology. There is even Steel's assertion that the better thought out the research plan the less valuable it's results will probably be! His reference to the Heisenberg principle is much less shocking than I believe he expects; few researchers or planners today are so unthinking as to fail to recognize that their intervention -- in a physics lab or in a focus group -- somehow alters the results in ways we may not understand. Steel is generally hard on the usefulness of statistical measures -- and on the intellectual abilities of those who shepherd such activities. Yet he is pleased to report research results he likes --for example, when discussing the successful attainment of specific objectives in the "Got Milk?" Campaign. To the extent that Steel's views are similar to the widely held belief that advertising research fr! equently killed good creative and drove a long lasting -- if not permanent -- wedge between the researcher and the creative departments, the point is important to make from an historical perspective. Yet, the issues we are trying to resolve call for all our resources, including personal and subjective points of view, so that we can -- as Jon Steel would have us do -- get the advertising right. There is as little room in this competitive profession for bad research as there is for bad planning. Account planning is, as Steel asserts, most likely to work best when it is a combination of many points of view. Then, the insertion of a brilliantly straight forward notion that transcends the data and takes us to a new place (e.g."got milk?", or "see what develops") is really what account planning is all about. Steel's book is, as he says, more than a description of account planning. Yet, it is the best description of the way in which the process works that the profession has so far. In addition, the book is a wonderful tale of a time in an agency's life when the right juxtaposition of talent, brains, raw energy and empowering clients came together. The feeling the reader receives is that the pages open before them have been written by someone who loves advertising. Those who know Steel -- or have even briefly met him or heard him speak -- know that to be true.
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Summary: Good Intro To Account Planning
Review: A useful and provocative survey of the discipline of account planning. While a little short on techniques, it manages to create a compelling argument for planning, and may be useful to sell the need to management. Sort of an extended pitch for Goodby, incidentally, although that's to be expected in most of the insider advertising literature.
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Summary: Big Ears, Bad Haircut, "Huge Brain"!
Review: After having the opportunity to see Mr. Steel speak, I was impressed with a few things, his rather large ears, his bad haircut, and his incredibly 'huge' brain. I purchased the book immediately and now consistently send it to business associates, acquaintances and friends as the bible for what's really important about advertising. Jon has brought the true reason for success to the form of literature for 'everyman/woman'. There is nothing like this book, that I'm aware of, and it should be given to every new ad person and also to every person in the marketing and communications category of consumer brands.
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Summary: The perfect formula for brand-building
Review: Although, there's no fail-safe formula for creating advertising that works, in Truth, Lies and Advertising, Jon Steel certainly gives us a dependable solution. Rather than relying on an individual's hit or miss ideas, Steel advocates a common-sense approach to creating advertising that involves consumers right from the development of the campaign and helps build lasting relationships with them. Add to this a dose of high-voltage creativity and you have the perfect formula for brand-building! With lively anecdotes and tongue-in-cheek humour, Steel presents his agency's award-winning campaigns for Polaroid, California Milk Processors and Norwegian Cruise Lines as testimonies to this formula. How does his agency (GS&P) conceive such memorable advertising campaigns? Through 'account planning', a new discipline which has now percolated into every modern advertising agency in the world. If you're in advertising, you must read this book. It's sure to change the way you view advertising today.
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Summary: The mystery of account planning revealed
Review: An oddity among ad books one that is neither a self-serving PR piece for an agency (or its principals), nor a dusty tome suitable only as an academic punishment.Jon Steel provides a comprehensive, easy-to-understand look at the fundamentals of account planning, how it can help advertising succeed, and real world examples of the process at work.Far from the last word on the subject, Steel exposes both the method's strengths and weaknesses while commenting pointedly on how little most advertising practitioners know about either art OR science.Enlightening, useful, entertaining.
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Summary: Best book on account planning we've seen yet.
Review: Another Outsource Marketing firm favorite! A great book about communication planning written by Jon Steel, the Brit who heads account planning for Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Steel and his agency are best known for developing the "got milk?" campaign. Truth, Lies & Advertising describes the process of gathering consumer insights and turning them into potent communications. It offers great advice about developing advertising objectives, using consumer research, and working with creative people. Steel writes with enthusiasm and sympathy for the creative process, but he's also savvy about business realities and committed to results. If you've ever struggled to reconcile the art of creative with the science of business, this book should interest you.
Rating:
Summary: Best book on account planning we've seen yet.
Review: Another Outsource Marketing firm favorite! A great book about communication planning written by Jon Steel, the Brit who heads account planning for Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Steel and his agency are best known for developing the "got milk?" campaign. Truth, Lies & Advertising describes the process of gathering consumer insights and turning them into potent communications. It offers great advice about developing advertising objectives, using consumer research, and working with creative people. Steel writes with enthusiasm and sympathy for the creative process, but he's also savvy about business realities and committed to results. If you've ever struggled to reconcile the art of creative with the science of business, this book should interest you.
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Summary: Connections That Will Surprise You
Review: Anyone who's witnessed or participated in the generally rancorous discussions that go on between the creative people in advertising agencies and their research counterparts would do well to read this excellent book.
Mr. Steel admits that as an account planner he is very much a believer in consumer and advertising research. Yet, the agency where he practiced prior to writing this book is one of the most creatively-driven and award-winning in the business. So what gives? If creativity and research are such natural antagonists, how could he (and research) have flourished in that environment?
Well, as he patiently explains and clearly illustrates with many examples, the problem isn't with research per se. The problem is with how the research is conducted, by whom and to what purpose. Done wrong, it is, as he puts it: "the blind leading the bland". Whereas done properly, research can not only save the creative people's most unexpected and outrageous ideas, it can even make them better and more effective.
Naturally, this is a book any account planner will want to read, if for no other reason than the extraordinary chapter devoted to preparing a truly exceptional creative brief. But anyone involved in the ad agency/client loop will benefit from it because at the very least, it will help you determine if the account planning you're currently getting is real account planning or just tired, old research with a spiffy new name.
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