Customer Reviews

Truth, Lies, and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning

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Successful ad campaigns are not linear developments where a business need meshes straightforwardly with an effective creative approach and actually produces successful tangible results. Instead, building memorable, provocative advertising campaigns is such a complex, political task, both rational and emotional, that a successful campaign is a wonder. Veteran advertising expert Jon Steel contends that building a good campaign is the common sense responsibility of the account planner - the new nexus of the consumer, agency creative staff, client and researchers. Steel shows the pitfalls of misguided research and creative arrogance as he explains that a good business-oriented account planner can help produce wonderfully effective, often simple, ad campaigns. His witty, erudite book concludes with its best case study: a look inside the successful "Got Milk" campaign for the California milk industry. We recommend this book to those who buy and sell advertising and to anyone working at an ad agency.

Another Outsource Marketing firm favorite!

A great book about communication planning written by Jon Steel, the Brit who heads account planning for Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Steel and his agency are best known for developing the "got milk?" campaign.

Truth, Lies & Advertising describes the process of gathering consumer insights and turning them into potent communications.

It offers great advice about developing advertising objectives, using consumer research, and working with creative people.

Steel writes with enthusiasm and sympathy for the creative process, but he's also savvy about business realities and committed to results.

If you've ever struggled to reconcile the art of creative with the science of business, this book should interest you.

Anyone who's witnessed or participated in the generally rancorous discussions that go on between the creative people in advertising agencies and their research counterparts would do well to read this excellent book.
Mr. Steel admits that as an account planner he is very much a believer in consumer and advertising research. Yet, the agency where he practiced prior to writing this book is one of the most creatively-driven and award-winning in the business. So what gives? If creativity and research are such natural antagonists, how could he (and research) have flourished in that environment?
Well, as he patiently explains and clearly illustrates with many examples, the problem isn't with research per se. The problem is with how the research is conducted, by whom and to what purpose. Done wrong, it is, as he puts it: "the blind leading the bland". Whereas done properly, research can not only save the creative people's most unexpected and outrageous ideas, it can even make them better and more effective.
Naturally, this is a book any account planner will want to read, if for no other reason than the extraordinary chapter devoted to preparing a truly exceptional creative brief. But anyone involved in the ad agency/client loop will benefit from it because at the very least, it will help you determine if the account planning you're currently getting is real account planning or just tired, old research with a spiffy new name.

This was pretty good. I was annoyed with the first half of the book because the author wastes time with irrelevent tangents and self-indulgent anecdotes. But by the end, I'd gleamed a lot of general wisdom on the account planning. If you're looking into account planning, this is the only book on the subject... and it's definitely worth a read. If you're trying to learn more about advertising in general, read "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This". It's cuttingly insightful and perhaps the easiest-to-read non-fiction I've ever picked up.

This book is an answer to those false pundits who cry out that advertising is dead. This book shows why BAD advertising fails, yet it also shows how GREAT advertising can be strategically conceived and employed to generate measurable, quantifiable results. Consequently, Truth, Lies & Advertising is an essential, must-read for anyone who wants to maximize their return on the money invested in advertising... and it's a must-own addition to any advertising, marketing or business library.

Forget that Steel is writing about an advertising agency discipline called 'account' planning. The lessons herein are much more important than that! A more descriptive term, and one that might gain Steel's ideas more universal acceptance, would be, 'brand' planning, which is exactly what Jon Steel describes. In other words, Steel advocates a strategic process for planning how you listen and communicate with customers...thereby profiting from a mutually beneficial relationship.

In the process, Steel debunks many myths including the infallibility of "research". In fact he demonstrates that ill-conceived research, or research that's poorly conducted can lead us to absolutely wrong conclusions. The book is filled with humorous, but true misadventures of qualitative and quantitative research that's gone terribly wrong.

More than anything, this book makes the case for quality listening. If you ask the right questions, in the correct environment and at the right time, customers will tell you exactly what will positively motivate them. And if you use, but don't abuse, that information you will be able to deliver genuine value and prosper as a result.

In a time when all the pundits are crying about the "end of advertising" or the "rise of P/R", Steel's book is one of the very best books on advertising that's ever been written and it's the definitive book on account planning. While many books decry the effectiveness of advertising, they are truly only pointing out that bad advertising is a waste of money. Anyone can write about that. But, the trick is knowing how to create great advertising that sells a product and generates a profitable return on the money invested in the marketing effort!

Everyone who's ever practiced advertising makes claims to being a "strategist", but Steel takes marketing strategy to new levels. To start with, he exposes many of the lies, myths and platitudes than run rampant through this discipline. In particular, he shows how well-intentioned "research" can actually mislead the advertising practitioner if the research isn't properly conceived, conducted and analyzed. In the end, it takes listening, insight, awareness and talent to see through these "true lies".

But fear not, the book lays out a clear and understandable methodology about how to look at a company, it's products, services, benefits, competitors and markets. It gives straight forward advice on how to create a no-nonsense plan that will actually work! And it illustrates these points with anecdotes and stories that are entertaining and enlightening.

In the end, it does not matter how "creative" an ad may be. What matters is the return you get on your marketing investment! If you read this book, you'll be well on your way.

This is a book about a discipline that is still considered to be somewhat mysterious in advertising. However, for those who do understand it, it is THE competitive strategic advantage in advertising and marketing thinking.

Steel is obviously very seasoned and knows the discipline and the business. In fact, he's probably the foremost expert in the field. The one thing that he teaches here is the you must peel back all assumptions and ask consumers some very root-level questions to find the real barrier to purchase, or real value of a product. He is incredibly right.

Overall, the book is much longer than it needs to be, but the insight is worth the time.

After having the opportunity to see Mr. Steel speak, I was impressed with a few things, his rather large ears, his bad haircut, and his incredibly 'huge' brain. I purchased the book immediately and now consistently send it to business associates, acquaintances and friends as the bible for what's really important about advertising. Jon has brought the true reason for success to the form of literature for 'everyman/woman'. There is nothing like this book, that I'm aware of, and it should be given to every new ad person and also to every person in the marketing and communications category of consumer brands.

I teach advertising to MBAs at a business school, but I used to be an agency account executive. I have been looking for something for my students to read that gives them a real appreciation for the creative side of the business. Jon Steel's book is so outstanding that I am considering making it required reading in my classes.

Three parts of his message are especially valuable to "client side" (i.e. marketing) people: first, he is very articulate about the importance of doing qualitative, consumer-centered research....but not over-interpreting it.

Second, he makes a convincing argument for the use of judgment over data: clients sometimes imagine "hard numbers" will prove to them whether they are doing the right kind of advertising, but agency folks see this as a kind of cowardice. Steel will help you understand the difference between useful, diagnostic, research that inspires great creative-- and research that results in boring, average advertising.

Finally, his chapter on creative briefs - what they are for and how to write them - is superb. This is definitely going to be on the syllabus for next year.

Whether you are a client marketer, or an agency person who would like to inspire a client to more creative work, this is a must read.

A useful and provocative survey of the discipline of account planning. While a little short on techniques, it manages to create a compelling argument for planning, and may be useful to sell the need to management. Sort of an extended pitch for Goodby, incidentally, although that's to be expected in most of the insider advertising literature.