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Book Review Madscam

Written by: Jay Hamilton-Roth

Article Overview: George Parker’s very strong opinions on advertising are detailed in his latest book (subtitled “Kick-Ass Advertising Without the Madison Avenue Price Tag”). He rants about the way businesses generally do advertising, what’s wrong, and how to do much better (without spending a lot).

Book Review Madscam

“People don’t read advertising - they read what they are interested in. And sometimes, it happens to be ads.”
- Howard Gossage

George Parker’s very strong opinions on advertising are detailed in his latest book (subtitled “Kick-Ass Advertising Without the Madison Avenue Price Tag”). He rants about the way businesses generally do advertising, what’s wrong, and how to do much better (without spending a lot).

First, if your business foundation isn’t strong (poor quality of service or product), fix it. Spending time and money to create an ad only to have more people dissatisfied by your business isn’t a good idea.

To create a good (or great) ad, you need three things: information (your unique selling/value proposition - USP/ UVP), time (to craft), and money (to spread the message).

Some of his questions to help you craft your USP/UVP include:

Are you unique?

Can you positively prove it?

If you’re not unique, are you better at what you do than the competition?

Do you provide provable quality?

Do you provide value?

Are you totally reliable?

Do you give the impression you’ve been around for a while?

Do you have solid and reference-proof case studies?

If you went out of business tomorrow, would anyone, apart from you, your mother, your dog, and your investors give a damn?

“The consumer isn’t stupid, she’s your wife.”
- David Olgilvy

Great ads aren’t full of clichés or say “me-too”. They are edgy ads full of true, useful information (USP/UVP) about your product (or service). They are well targeted. The standard axiom of “it takes 7 impressions to get noticed” are baloney - all it takes is one great ad to get noticed, and hammering a dumb message over and over is insulting to the reader.

Besides discussing when it’s appropriate to create print, radio, television, and online advertisements, he tells how (and who) should create the ads. He’s not a fan of doing it yourself with in-house talent; he strongly believes that you should almost always use a consultant / freelancer (like himself). When creating ads, use “tissue sessions”: a simple idea is shown and you brainstorm the contents with the ad-creating talent.

“I know that half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted.
Unfortunately, I don’t know which half.”
- John Wanamaker

He concludes that you must measure the result of your advertising. When someone new contacts you ask, “Where did you hear about us?”. Use tracking codes or special ad-specific offers to help isolate which ads produced which results. Without measuring, you have no clue if you’re wasting half your money (or more).

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Article Tags: advertising, advertising, advertising, business foundation, David Olgilvy Great, George Parker, Howard Gossage, Madison Avenue Price Tag, product, quality of service, USP, USP UVP, USP UVP, value proposition



Related Forum Posts
Re: Top 50 Lists - Hi Evan, How about "Top 50": -Inventor Blogs To Watch -Franchising Blogs To Watch -Business Book Review Blogs -Women Entrepreneur Blogs -Young Entrepreneur Blogs
My reading log - Hi OmnivoreInk, Before starting my business, I read the following books as research: -"The Art of the Start" by Guy Kawasaki -"The AdSense Code" by Joel Comm -"Don't Think Pink" and "Mind Your X's and Y's" by Lisa Johnson And since then I've continued my "research" by reading (in this order): -"Technical Tennis" by Rod Cross -"For One More Day" by Mitch Albom -"The Twits" by Roald Dahl -"Little Black Book of Connections" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne -"The Profitable Retailer" by Doug Fleener -"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell -"Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis -"Little Green Book of Getting Your Way" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling And I'm currently reading and am in the process of finishing the following: -"There's No Such Thing as Public Speaking" by Jeanette and Roy Henderson -"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell -"The Book of Tells" by Peter Collett -"Little Red Book of Sales Answers" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience" by Jonathan M. Tisch -"The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" by Julia Cameron -"The Inner Game of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey
Re: Significance of Review Sites - Exactly! Review sites are very helpful for providing better understanding to a product or service.
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
UPDATES: Rules & Guidelines for Review My... - HI everyone, Just before the weekend approaches, wanted to let everyone know that the rules and guidelines for the new forum Review My... are up! The forum is meant for our members to ask for some constructive and honest critiques on their products, services or websites. Since it's a new addition, if you have any suggestions feel free to speak up. Have a great weekend everybody! Cheers, Ringo


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