There’s a challenge right out of the blocks when you decide to write a book about advertising: Do you make it serious or do you make it entertaining? If you choose the former – in a desperate attempt to add some gravitas to an industry that no one thinks is worth applying any vigorous thought to – well then your readership will be minus one (because even you won’t read it after you turn in the manuscript). If you choose to be entertaining, well, great!, people will read it – mission accomplished! And then they will say “Just as I expected – advertising is utterly devoid of serious thought”.
But wait, that’s not all. Because even if you do go down the entertainment route, there’s the question of whether or not you should be funny or merely, you know, “not dull” (and if you’re new to business books, let us alert you, “not dull” immediately elevates your book into the 1%). And the problem with being funny – beyond what we said above – is what kind of funny? Because if you default to the bread and butter of “advertising funny” – you know, sarcasm – then you will invariably tear down that which you are talking about (because that’s how sarcasm works, chicky baby).
What’s so remarkable, therefore, about Wallman and Edwards’ How Brands Blow is that they do all of these things. And none of them. At the same damn time. That is to say, they have written a serious book about advertising that evinces the smartness and rigorous thinking they’ve applied to this business – that is actually readable. Indeed, it is so readable that it is downright entertaining. How? By being funny. And by being sarcastic. Which means it tears down advertising (because that’s how sarcasm works) even as it still makes one appreciate advertising and – gasp! – even respect it.
How did they do it? As the fella says, we don’t know.
Because there are also clowns. (Did I not mention the clowns? My apologies. There are clowns.)
Taking its title from Byron Sharp’s blockbuster 2010 work How Brands Grow (which, we confess, as of this writing we have not read), How Brands Blow is a deceptively breezy, endearingly angry, almost always funny, and ridiculously insightful disembowelment of the practical creation of advertising that will have you laughing and crying, generally at the same time.
And before we get to the things we quite liked about it, let’s just contextualize with the things we didn’t. Sometimes – not often, but still – they’re really just yelling at the kids to get off their lawn. And sometimes the graphics get in the way of the message. And sometimes the page numbers… well, there aren’t any page numbers. Which makes it really hard to direct you precisely to the great stuff they have to say (more on that below).
And that’s about it. (Well, also the clowns, frankly. We’re not big on clowns).
What did we like about it? This:
“People […] adore being personally stalked by online advertising. After buying, say, a funeral service for a loved one, nothing would make them happier than spending the next three years seeing banner ads for coffins.”
Or this, in which they use the Academy Award-winning movie Chariots of Fire to explain the shortcomings of demographics:
“Demographically speaking, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams had a lot in common. Both were university-educated British men, of a similar age, who won Olympic gold medals (OK, admittedly that last bit isn’t exactly a demographic category). But despite their superficial similarities, these two men were vastly different people in terms of their beliefs and motivations. This is why generalisations, especially demographic ones, can be risky. Not to say that demographics are useless – they may be handy heuristics at times – but they do need to be treated with caution.”
Or the section “How to be Creative” (page number, um…) which is not only spot on but actually echoes James Webb Young. Or their thoughts about “the creativity zone” (page, … 12 million and three). Or their “Simple Guide to Social Media” (page, MI5, I guess). Or their “Marketing Predictions for 2020” (pages 25 or 6 to 4), specifically #3:
“Humans will be completely eliminated from the online advertising process. Bots will sell ads to other bots, and those ads will only be seen by another set of bots. As a result, some bots will become billionaires.”
and #5
“A high profile CMO will be praised for backpedaling on an earlier decision, despite the fact that everyone other than the CMO knew it was a fucking stupid decision in the first place.”
Their “Advertising Quotes for the Modern Era” (page number redacted for national security reasons) is the kind of insider fun that will be lost on exactly the people who should read it and their “Duck Hunting: The Agency Version” (go-ask-your-mother for the page number) actually made us laugh out loud.
And lest you think it’s all snark (and yeah, obviously there’s a significant amount of snark), there’s also the kind of plain talk that is sadly lacking in advertising (and likely always has been). Like about what advertising can actually do – and what it can’t:
“What a campaign like this does is increase the likelihood that you will choose BCF over another brand when you next go boating, camping or fishing. As Bob Hoffman points out, there are no guarantees in marketing – it’s all about likelihoods and probabilities.”
And what a brand can do – and can’t:
“The myth – ‘People engage with our brand on an emotional level.’ The reality – ‘Please. People use selfie-sticks FFS. Most of them don’t engage with their own mothers on an emotional level.’”
It’s really a remarkable accomplishment, and the fact that they’ve jammed all of this and more into a book so small you could easily prop it up behind your laptop at your next “this meeting should have been an email” meeting, and finish it before the first blowhard has finished reading the agenda, is remarkable.
Now, are we suggesting you do that? No, I am not. Because it would be unprofessional to spend company time actually learning how to make better advertising?
No. We are suggesting it because it would be unprofessional to spend company time actually learning how to make better advertising while snot was shooting out of your nose from laughing every ten minutes.
How Brands Blow by Ryan Wallman & Giles Edwards was published by … Gasp! Books on 11/15/2023 – order it from Amazon here, or pick it up at your local bookseller (find one here).
Please be advised that The Agency Review is an Amazon Associate and as such earns a commission from qualifying purchases
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