Inspiration

Think Different campaign – how Apple came back from the dead
And Rob Stilanen, who wrote the original drafts of the campaign, tells the same story in this article from Forbes magazine – but with a few differences.

They Ask, You Answer – book review
Content Marketing is an attractive business growth philosophy, sadly tarnished by the junk that doubtless worms its way into your inbox. But Marcus Sheridan tells a compelling story of taking his Pool business from nothing to considerable success with a properly sustainable, upfront and honest approach – and mentoring other business to their own [...]

Double your sales overnight
Three words that supposedly doubled the sales of shampoo overnight: “Rinse and Repeat”

Google visibility
Once upon a time, there was no google. How did we survive? In August 1996 Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched Google (originally called Backrub) on Stanford University’s network. It began as a research project of Larry Page, who enrolled in Stanford’s computer science graduate program in 1995. There, he met fellow CS student Sergey [...]

EYE TRAIL
Eye tracking research shows how people look at a page. These examples are based on actual eye-tracking. Pictures of people attract attention. Faces particularly are the first things people look at. This shows the eye trail as tracked as people looked at this ad. Note that the trail leads to the copy and message. Siegfred [...]

Scientific Advertising
Free download In 1923 an advertising genius called Claude Hopkins wrote a booklet: ‘Scientific Advertising’. Here’s what Wikipedia says about it: “Scientific Advertising” was written by Claude C Hopkins in 1923 and is cited by many advertising and marketing personalities (such as David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert and Jay Abraham) as a “must-read” book. David Ogilvy [...]

Marketing Warfare
Al Ries and Jack Trout’s 1970’s booklet ‘The Positioning Era’ summarised a gradual but significant development in advertising following the 1960’s ‘image’ advertising. Image advertising had taken over from the direct selling styles of traditional advertising, and the era of the USP (unique selling proposition) – though the newer developments could be said to sharpen [...]

Claude Hopkins
“Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins is still rated by many greats as the real bible on advertising. This introduction to a 1960’s edition of the book is by the great David Ogilvy. If you haven’t seen ‘Scientific Advertising’ there is a downloadable version on my website here. Ogilvy’s introduction is worth reading anyway though. This [...]

More David Ogilvy
Fellow David Ogilvy fans will enjoy this interview from the archives, for direct marketers everywhere:

PR vs. Advertising
Al Ries and Laura Ries’ analysis of what advertising can do in the 2000’s, and what it can’t. Here’s a taster: “The purpose of advertising is not to build a brand, but to defend a brand once the brand has been built by other means, primarily public relations or third-party endorsements”….. “To defend a brand [...]

Laws of Branding
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al Ries and Laura Ries, published in 1998 by Profile books. More from Al Reis, this time with his daughter Laura who is also his business partner. ’22 immutable Laws’ is possibly an over-grand title, but the book is very pretty well packed with very good advice and [...]

Readable Layout
Free download David Ogilvy commissioned and adopted excellent, deatiled, research into the effects of layout and typefaces on comprehension. The research and results are covered fully in Colin Wheildon’s book mentioned elsewhere on this website. (Colin is the man who did the research). But the attached file shows exactly what he meant with examples of [...]

Scientific design
If there were just one book to read on layout and design, this would be it. Wheildon’s research was commended and relied on by David Ogilvy, amongst others, and the book has a foreword by the great man. A lot of Wheildon’s research has been passed on and, in versions I have read, suffered from [...]

David Ogilvy
David Ogilvy on direct response advertising. The Master speaks.

Positioning
Jack Trout co-authored the original book on Positioning in 1980 with Al Ries. Here is a lecture he gave in 2012 to a marketing conference in Azerbaijan – 2 hours including Q&A, and fascinating throughout. Whether or not you’ve read the book, this is a very clear outline of the theory and full of up-to-date examples. [...]

Categories or Brands
Al Ries, along with Jack Trout, is the father of the theory of Positioning*. Here he talks about how people perceive categories of products, and how brands relate to that. *Positioning is explained more fully in their other work. See this review as an example.