Another book I’ve not read but listened to the last months was Bang!. The subtitle is: “Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World” and that is what the book is about. It’s mainly about successful marketing or to be more precise advertising campaigns. The two authors run a very successful marketing agency in the US and they created many big bangs – how they call advertising campaigns which explode. Their main concept (in my opinion) is: be paradox! Don’t make what everyone does or what everyone expects or what you would do in the first place. Think about it a second time, from a different perspective. Think about: what wouldn’t you do and why. And then do exactly this. The authors also describe in detail how they generated an environment where such ideas can pop up. My favourite story for example is this one:

The AFLAC insurance company, for example, was turned into a household name when a member of the KTG team realized that AFLAC sounded like the quack of a duck. The AFLAC duck raised the company’s profile from zero to instantly recognizable.

The quote is taken from Amazon btw.

To summarize: the book is at first entertaining, at second it will change maybe slightly the way you think about advertising, but it won’t guide you in creating big bangs! You know the reason why: don’t do what someone tells you to do – be different, be paradox, be unique!

And have a good time!

Martin