Famed market researcher AND friend of IdeaMill, Lindsay Zaltman, stopped by the shop to talk about his new book, Marketing Metaphoria. Check out the the interview (above), but more importantly, read the book and learn about deep metaphors and their guiding role in decision making.

photo credit: Merideth Farmer

Here’s a great article from the NYT about one of the biggest pitfalls in marketing: talking to yourself. Many very intelligent people and innovative businesses have been found guilty of the offense. The author points the finger at the “Curse of Knowledge.”

Chip Heath (author of Made to Stick) illustrates the problem very well: “It’s kind of like the ugly American tourist trying to get across an idea in another country by speaking English slowly and more loudly. You’ve got to find the common connections.”

flickr credit: ocean.flynn

Brand-aware marketers know that their audience is comprised of people. And people are driven by a fascinating combination of emotion and reason. Arjun Chaudhuri’s book, Emotion and Reason in Consumer Behavior explores the complex interface between emotion and reason and it’s role in decision making. It’s a must read.

All you need to know about producing great work in just 17 pages. Enjoy this brief book, titled… Bill Bernbach Said.

“The future of the book is the blurb”
- Marshall McLuhan

I’m constantly looking through books that contemplate the future of human communication. I’ve yet to come across a more accurate oracle than McLuhan. The Medium is the Massage was published in 1967, yet it provides a more descriptive sense of our future than most books written today. He offers a detailed view of life in the information age; quite impressive for a guy who died before the first personal computer went to market.

Check out the McLuhan estate’s website

In 1945, Fortune magazine declared Eleanor Roosevelt to be the most popular American woman. Firmly seated in the second was Betty Crocker. That’s pretty impressive for someone that never existed! Crocker was a creation of marketer Samuel Gale who worked for the Washburn Crosby Company. The rest is history and you can learn more by reading Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America’s First Lady of Food.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743265017/002-2244427-8566416)

Ordinary Advertising should be avoided like the plague, at least that’s Mark Silveira’s position. I must tend to agree.

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