Life After the 30-Second Spot: Energize Your Brand With a Bold Mix of Alternatives to Traditional Advertising [Hardcover]

I reviewed this over at the CMA - Canadian Marketing Association - Website and I thought it was appropriate to post it here as well...

Life After The 30-Second Spot

You should own this book. I don't even know you, but I know enough that if you're reading this, you are somehow involved in advertising, marketing and communications and that means that you (and everyone you know in this space) should be clutching a copy of Life After The 30-Second Spot - Energize Your Brand with a Bold Mix of Alternatives to Traditional Advertising by Joseph Jaffe. If you employ people or know someone studying our world, they should be forced to read this book before starting their first day on the job. My guess is, this is the one book most marketers wished they had written (I know I wish I had written it) or are scared to read.

You're right, that's a strong statement to make - especially about a book - but it is well deserved.

Jaffe points a sniper rifle at the advertising world and picks off great (and new) opportunities one at a time. By identifying ten quick wins and how to execute them (or, at least, why you should be paying attention to them), Jaffe shines as a marketer who is more inclined to grow a business organically than hop on the word-of-mouth buzz-hype of the moment (which usually results in a quick jump up in brand lift and then a much sharper drop down to irrelevance).

How often have advertising agencies pulled clients aside and proposed a gaming, experiential or branded entertainment program? It's not always an easy subject for marketers to broach with their clients. Now, thanks to Life After The 30-Second Spot, you have the manual. Jaffe does not provide all of the gory details and answers, but there are enough insights to spark your curiosity and construct a long-term plan that works.

So, is the 30-second spot really dead, or is this Jaffe's marketing shtick to get you reading? "Consumers aren't as stupid as they used to be," Jaffe muses. "Rumors of its (the 30-second spot) demise may very well be exaggerated, but they are irrelevant. Using the 30-second spot today is like taking a wooden sword to fight a fire-breathing dragon. You better have fire insurance."

That "fire-breathing dragon" is you and me. Life After The 30-Second Spot follows the same logic path as anyone who is following Web 2.0, Listenomics and Brand Democratization. It's getting harder and harder to jam 30-seconds of original exaggeration into a push channel that people hardly care about anymore. We're all off IM'ing each other as we create a MySpace and Blog about how bad the new screens are on the iPod Nano.

Jaffe uses many real-life examples of brands and companies to highlight the success of people who have already dared, and mixes in his own clever writing pace and humor to keep the book from going dry with academic marketing slang - he's a cunning linguist. If you're looking for that New-Year's-resolution-to-start-reading book, look no further than Life After The 30-Second Spot... it may even make you reconsider some of your marketing-related resolutions for 2006.

Final note: I got Life After The 30-Second Spot for free from Joseph Jaffe. I heard him speak here in Montreal and signed up to be a part of his UNM2PNM - Use New Marketing to Prove New Marketing program. If I did not love Life After The 30-Second Spot, I would have said so. This really is a must-read.

Reviewed by:

Mitch Joel

Twist Image

"Life After the 30-Second Spot" is an excellent book for those not only in the corporate media world but for students who will be tomorrow's leaders. It is a engaging, jargon-free, and practical primer on the power of branding in today's media-saturated world that can serve the disciplines of film and television studies, communication, and business.

It is not enough for students to study the media as independent entities or media texts as having some kinds of universal and unilateral meaning handed down by corporations and marketers. Joseph Jaffe makes it clear that consumers have greater empowerment over their media habits than any other time in history and the media world better beware! Today's consumers are more fickle, disloyal, and connected so it is best that students (who embody the early range of the 18-34 advertising sweet-spot)start thinking early about themselves and their future career plans. This book accomplishes just that.

Jaffe intelligently demonstrates how media clutter, fragmentation, and proliferation have changed the way that coprporations conduct their business for new patterns of consumption. To deliver reach and audiences, he suggests that products need to be brands, multi-platform goods and services available twenty-four hours a days at a variety of touch points. It's all about content now and students can realize from this book the range of opportunities currently available in the media industries for creative and financial gain.

I strongly recommend this book over any other book that deals with the integration of entertainment and advertising. Jaffe's ideas and approaches will remain with us for many years to come. It is a book ahead of its time.

For anyone remotely involved with advertising and brand communications, if you haven't already, you should read Joseph Jaffe's excellent, thought provoking and brave book. In the foreword Don Schultz says 'this is the book I wish I had written'. I'm sure many more people will feel the same.

It's time to get our heads out the sand and realise that technology, media and consumers have changed dramatically. But advertising hasn't. We must move on. A continued reliance on the 30-second spot as the mainstay of all media strategies just isn't going to cut it. Jaffe brilliantly lays down the arguments and ideas for Life After The 30 Second Spot.

If you're already thinking ahead of the 30-second spot or if you're in a state of denial or anywhere in between - read Jaffe's book. And check out his blog site too jaffejuice.com.

Can't wait for the sequel.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 28 reviews  4.5 out of 5 stars