Customer Reviews

Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wunderman provides a glimpse into a long and prosperous career in the direct advertising industry. Emphasizing the journey and the road to discovery rather than the actual destination, this book outlines how and when key direct marketing concepts were created, where he employed them, and the results which were achieved. I liked this book but it did take me some time to plow through it. I struggled to remain focused through parts of the book but, overall, it was a pretty enjoyable read.

Being Direct uses many different company and industry examples to outline the development of the Direct Marketing industry. Wunderman does a good job, in a somewhat autobiographical way, as he demonstrates how direct marketing found its niche in the marketing world. Direct Marketing, due to mistaken perceptions among marketing industry experts and large advertisers, took many years to gain recognition. Wunderman asserts that Direct Marketing was, at first, seen as essentially no more than direct mail order advertising. Industry reluctance changed, however, as advertisers and marketing industry experts began to see that through direct marketing an advertiser could better know its customer segments and achieve better sales and profitability results by better catering to those customers' needs. Accordingly, Wunderman provides many examples to prove that the subtitle, "Making Advertising Pay", is certainly an appropriate descriptor for Direct Marketing.

This book is written in a story-like narrative that makes it a pretty quick and easy one to read.

Lester's tale really gives you an inside look at how the entire 'Direct' movement started and his place in it's history. I loved the format of this book; being story formatted made it read much easier than many of the dry books out there on Direct Marketing and Advertising. This book should be a part of any real marketers collection. It's thick with timeless tips and techniques you may glean from it's pages.

This book is interesting particularly for the evolution of direct marketing that Wunderman describes--and to a large degree, instigated. Readers will notice a tendency for Wunderman to toot his own horn, but don't worry; it doesn't ever become obnoxious.

The book would be good as a general guide as to what works and what doesn't--and why--in direct marketing. If a company is looking at direct marketing as a possible direction, this would be a good place to start to get an idea of what is involved, and what it takes to be successful. It may or may not help the reader that Wunderman describes using his techniques in marketing both goods (flowers) and services (credit cards).

In the end, you get more history from it than hard, specific tips. A very good read, but don't expect it to be "100 tips to direct marketing success". The hints are there, but you'll need to dig them out.

As a Direct Marketeer I was really impressed by Wunderman's clear, sophisticated, simple book that is REALLY about direct selling ! For a Direct Marketing "freshmen" it helps to think about what you should think about. And for profis it is a treasure of Direct Marketing strategies that allready worked.

What a story! Wunderman invented so many of the marketing techniques we take for granted. Now he shares the inside story on how it did it. An inspiring trip through some of the greatest marketing ever.

Lester Wunderman, the father of direct marketing, is a great salesman and has a super story to tell. If you want to know more about Mr. Wunderman's life or the history of direct marketing then this book is for you. However, the book promises to deliver on "making advertising pay" and it simply doesn't. What techniques you learn about direct marketing are antidotal and have to be mined from a lot of ore. The first few pages enumerate Mr. Wunderman's 19 principles which is about the only direct how-to we get.