Professional Documents
Culture Documents
THE ESSENTIAL
READING GUIDE
2019
THE ESSENTIAL READING GUIDE 2019
To bastardize Philip Larkin, books are where we live,
where we come from. As a teenager, your record Fore-
collection was perhaps a more telling indication of
who you are, but as an adult, your books define you, or word
who you want to be.
Senior
Strategist
Strategist
Junior
Strategist
Junior Strategist
The Fundamentals
This guide was created to help others in ’70s JWT understand the
process of marketing and brand building. The document was typed
out and photocopied, and has resurfaced in the last few years.
Jon Steel
A dense read that will take you two to three reads before it all
seeps in.
@ProfByron
Ogilvy on
Advertising
David Ogilvy
Adam Pierno
@apierno
@BinetLes
Stephen King
On Writing Well
The Classic Guide to Writing Non-Fiction
William Zinsser
On Writing Well has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity and
the warmth of its style. It is a book for everybody who wants to
learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through
the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the
Internet.
Tested Advertising
Methods
John Caples
@BinetLes
THE ESSENTIAL READING GUIDE 2019
Marketing
Theory
@wiemersnijders
THE ESSENTIAL READING GUIDE 2019
Behavioural
Economics
Unconscious Branding:
How Neuroscience Can Empower
Marketing
Douglas Van Praet
For too long marketers have been asking the wrong question. If
consumers make decisions unconsciously, why do we persist in
asking them directly through traditional marketing research why
they do what they do? They simply can't tell us because they don't
really know. Before marketers develop strategies, they need to
recognize that consumers have strategies too . . . human strategies,
not consumer strategies. We need to go beyond asking why, and
begin to ask how, behavior change occurs. Here, author Douglas
Van Praet takes the most brilliant and revolutionary concepts from
cognitive science and applies them to how we market, advertise,
and consume in the modern digital age.
@DouglasVanPraet
Paid Attention:
Innovative Advertising for a Digital World
Faris Yakob
@faris
Susan Bell
On Writing:
A Memoir of the Craft
Stephen King
Randall Rothenberg
Reading this book is a litmus test to see if you have the right
constitution for advertising. Rothenberg’s perspective on this
profession presents both its emotional highs and lows: at its highs
advertising is a dynamic and creative industry where you can do your
best work; at its lows advertising sucks the soul out of even the most
brilliant people, who, serving at the client’s whim, are always
“surrounded by The Fear.” If, after reading this, the heroic actions and
the heroic suffering of advertising hold allure for you in equal
measure, then you know you’ve found your calling.
@r2rothenberg
THE ESSENTIAL READING GUIDE 2019
Behavioural
Economics
Contagious:
Why Things Catch On
Jonah Berger
@j1berger
Brain Surfing
The Top Marketing Strategy Minds in the
World
Heather LeFevre
Deep understanding
A Beautiful Constraint:
How To Transform Your Limitations Into
Advantages, And Why It’s Everyone’s Business
Adam Morgan
@eatbigfish
THE ESSENTIAL READING GUIDE 2019
Creativity and
Design
Eaon Pritchard
@eaonp
Alchemy:
The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t
Make Sense
Rory Sutherland
@rorysutherland
Lateral Thinking
Edward de Bono
Why do some people always seem to have new ideas while others
of equal intelligence never do? Lateral Thinking is Edward de Bono's
original portrayal of what lateral thinking is, how it works and how
to use it to develop your own potential for thinking and problem
solving.
Dave Trott
From the First World War sailor who survived being sunk three
times in one day to the one-time 'merchant of death' who made his
name a byword for peace, and the gypsy who lost two fingers and
then reinvented jazz. From boardroom to battlefield, these stories
of unconventional wisdom from one of the world's true advertising
greats are a rallying cry for anyone who wants to think differently,
stand out and truly innovate.
@davetrott
Cultural Strategy
Using Innovative Ideologies to Build
Breakthrough Brands
Douglas Holt, Douglas Cameron
This landmark book posits a new marketing paradigm of ‘cultural innovation’ as the
solution to mindshare marketing’s failure to exploit innovation opportunities arising
from changes in society, culture, and politics.
Cultural Strategy debunks the dominant perspective that market success requires a
‘better’ product, which, the Dougs suggest, can only win niche markets: whereas,
brands achieve mainstream success by championing a ‘better’ ideology.
After reading this book you may find it hard (in good conscience) to generate strategy
any other way—this book challenges planners to implement ‘cultural innovation’:
● do our cultural homework on every project
● make brands authentic, credible and visible champions of their subculture
● help the companies we work with think, work, and decide differently.
@douglasbholt @IDCameronNY
THE ESSENTIAL READING GUIDE 2019
Creativity
A Technique for
Producing Ideas
James Webb Young
"James Webb Young conveys in his little book something more valuable
than the most learned and detailed texts on the subject of advertising.
Mr. Young is in the tradition of some of our greatest thinkers when he
describes the workings of the creative process"
--William Bernbach
The printing press, the pencil, the flush toilet, the battery--these
are all great ideas. But where do they come from? What kind of
environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance?
How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push
forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson's
answers are revelatory as he identifies the seven key patterns
behind genuine innovation, and traces them across time and
disciplines. From Darwin and Freud to the halls of Google and
Apple, Johnson investigates the innovation hubs throughout
modern time and pulls out the approaches and commonalities that
seem to appear at moments of originality.
@stevenbjohnson
Invisible Women
Data Bias in a World Designed for
Men
@CCriadoPerez
THE ESSENTIAL READING GUIDE 2019
Advertising
Madison Avenue
Manslaughter
Michael Farmer
The Effective
Manager
Mark Horstman
@mahorstman
Agency:
Starting a Creative Firm in the Age of
Digital Marketing
Rick Webb
@RickWebb
THE ESSENTIAL READING GUIDE 2019
Leadership
Tribe of Mentors:
Short Life Advice from the Best in the
World
Tim Ferriss
@tferriss
Play Bigger
How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators
Create and Dominate Markets
Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, Kevin Maney
Category design is a powerful tool for initiating ideas that transform markets, companies
and products—those who master this new discipline will earn influence in executive
decision-making and dominate markets.
Transitions are a critical time for leaders. In fact, most agree that
moving into a new role is the biggest challenge a manager will face.
While transitions offer a chance to start fresh and make needed
changes in an organization, they also place leaders in a position of
acute vulnerability. Missteps made during the crucial first three
months in a new role can jeopardize or even derail your success.
@MichaelDWatkins
THE ESSENTIAL READING GUIDE 2019
Leadership
High Output
Management
Andrew S. Grove
Seducing the
Subconscious:
The Psychology of Emotional
Influence in Advertising
Robert Heath
This is Water:
Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant
Occasion, about Living a Compassionate
Life
Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views
on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon
College. The speech is reprinted for the first time in book form in
THIS IS WATER. How does one keep from going through their
comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get
ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve
compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as
well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a
treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and
the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed
from friend to friend.