30 Best Books on Advertising

From Miles Young, worldwide non-executive chairman of Ogilvy & Mather, comes a sequel to David Ogilvy’s bestselling advertising handbook featuring essential strategies for the digital age.

In this must-have sequel to the bestselling Ogilvy On Advertising, Ogilvy chairman Miles Young provides top insider secrets and strategies for successful advertising in the Digital Revolution. As comprehensive as its predecessor was for print and TV, this indispensable handbook dives deep into the digital ecosystem, discusses how to best collect and utilize data-the currency of the digital age-to convert sales specifically on screen (phone, tablet, smart watch, computer, etc.), breaks down when and how to market to millennials, highlights the top five current industry giants, suggests best practices from brand response to social media, and offers 13 trend predictions for the future.

This essential guide is for any professional in advertising, public relations, or marketing seeking to remain innovative and competitive in today’s ever-expanding technological marketplace.

Marketing has an image problem. Media-savvy millennials, and their younger Gen Z counterparts, no longer trust advertising, and they demand increased social responsibility from their brands—while still insisting on cutting-edge products with on-trend design. As always, brands need to be cool—but now they need to be good, too. It’s a tall order, and with new technology empowering consumers to bypass advertisements altogether, it won’t be long before the old, advertising-based marketing model goes the way of the major label.If only there was a new model, one that allowed companies to address environmental, civic, and economic issues in a way that grew their brand and business, while giving back to society, and re-branding branding as a powerful force for good. Enter Good is The New Cool, a bold new manifesto from marketing experts Afdhel Aziz and Bobby Jones. In provocative, whip-smart, and streetwise style, they take aim at conventional marketing, posing the questions few have had the vision and courage to ask: If the system is broken, how can we fix it? Rather than sinking money into advertising, why not create a new model, in which great marketing optimizes life?With seven revolutionary new principles—from “Treat People as Citizens, Not Consumers,” to “Lead with the Cool”—and insights and interviews from a new generation of marketers, social entrepreneurs, and leaders of such brands as Zappos, Citibank, The Honest Company, as well as the culture creators working with artists like Lady Gaga, Pharrell, and Justin Bieber, this rule-breaking book is the new business model for the twenty-first century, and a call to action for anyone committed to building a better tomorrow. This visionary book won’t just change your business—it will change the world.

Revolutionary retail guru Paco Underhill is back with a completely revised edition of his classic, witty bestselling book on our ever-evolving consumer culture—full of fresh observations and important lessons from the cutting edge of retail such as Internet behemoths Amazon and iTunes as well as the globalization of retail in the world’s emerging markets.

This enlightening edition includes new information on:

-The latest trends in online retail—what retailers are doing right and what they’re doing wrong—and how nearly every Internet retailer from iTunes to Amazon can drastically improve how it serves its customers.

-A guided tour of the most innovative stores, malls and retail environments around the world—almost all of which are springing up in countries where prosperity is new. An enormous indoor ski slope attracts shoppers to a mall in Dubai; an uber-luxurious Sao Paolo department store provides its customers with personal shoppers; a mall in South Africa has a wave pool for surfing.

The new Why We Buy is an essential guide that offers advice on how to keep your changing customers and entice new and eager ones.

The man Business Week calls “the ultimate entrepreneur for the Information Age” explains “Permission Marketing”—the groundbreaking concept that enables marketers to shape their message so that consumers will willingly accept it.

Whether it is the TV commercial that breaks into our favorite program, or the telemarketing phone call that disrupts a family dinner, traditional advertising is based on the hope of snatching our attention away from whatever we are doing. Seth Godin calls this Interruption Marketing, and, as companies are discovering, it no longer works.

Instead of annoying potential customers by interrupting their most coveted commodity—time—Permission Marketing offers consumers incentives to accept advertising voluntarily. Now this Internet pioneer introduces a fundamentally different way of thinking about advertising products and services. By reaching out only to those individuals who have signaled an interest in learning more about a product, Permission Marketing enables companies to develop long-term relationships with customers, create trust, build brand awareness — and greatly improve the chances of making a sale.

Today, all it takes is one organizational misstep to sink a company’s reputation. Social media can be a strict ethical enforcer, with the power to convince thousands to boycott products and services. Executives are stuck on appeasing stakeholders―shareholders, employees, and consumers―but they ignore shapeholders, regulators, the media, and social and political activists who have no stake in a company but will work hard to curb what they see as bad business practices. And they do so at their own peril.

In Shapeholders: Business Success in the Age of Activism, former congressman, Fortune 500 executive, and university president Mark Kennedy argues that shapeholders, as much as stakeholders, have significant power to determine a company’s risks and opportunities, if not its survival. Many international, multi-billion-dollar corporations fail to anticipate activism, and they flounder on first contact. Kennedy zeroes in on the different languages that shapeholders and companies speak and their contrasting metrics for what constitutes acceptable business practice. Executives, he argues, must be visionaries who find profitable―and probable―collaborations to diffuse political tensions. Kennedy’s decision matrix helps corporations align their business practices with shapeholder interests, anticipate their demands, and assess changing moral standards so that together they can plan a profitable route forward.

This is a book about what happens when the smartest people in the room decide something is inevitable, and yet it doesn’t come to pass. What happens when omens have been misread, tea leaves misinterpreted, gurus embarrassed?

Twenty years after the Netscape IPO, ten years after the birth of YouTube, and five years after the first iPad, the Internet has still not destroyed the giants of old media. CBS, News Corp, Disney, Comcast, Time Warner, and their peers are still alive, kicking, and making big bucks. The New York Times still earns far more from print ads than from digital ads. Super Bowl commercials are more valuable than ever. Banner ad space on Yahoo can be bought for a relative pittance.

Sure, the darlings of new media—Buzzfeed, HuffPo, Politico, and many more—keep attracting ever more traffic, in some cases truly phenomenal traffic. But as Michael Wolff shows in this fascinating and sure-to-be-controversial book, their buzz and venture financing rounds are based on assumptions that were wrong from the start, and become more wrong with each passing year. The consequences of this folly are far reaching for anyone who cares about good journalism, enjoys bingeing on Netflix, works with advertising, or plans to have a role in the future of the Internet.

Wolff set out to write an honest guide to the changing media landscape, based on a clear-eyed evaluation of who really makes money and how. His conclusion: The Web, social media, and various mobile platforms are not the new television. Television is the new television.

We all know that Google and Facebook are thriving by selling online ads—but they’re aggregators, not content creators. As major brands conclude that banner ads next to text basically don’t work, the value of digital traffic to content-driven sites has plummeted, while the value of a television audience continues to rise. Even if millions now watch television on their phones via their Netflix, Hulu, and HBO GO apps, that doesn’t change the balance of power. Television by any other name is the game everybody is trying to win—including outlets like The Wall Street Journal that never used to play the game at all.

Drawing on his unparalleled sources in corner offices from Rockefeller Center to Beverly Hills, Wolff tells us what’s really going on, which emperors have no clothes, and which supposed geniuses are due for a major fall. Whether he riles you or makes you cheer, his book will change how you think about media, technology, and the way we live now.

The author says it best: “This book is for people like you and me. People who go to work and—using words, pictures, music, and stories—are expected to make s**t happen . . . to make the phone lines light up and the in-box fill up. Attract fans, friends, and followers. Make the cash register ring. Win the business. Close the deal. Sell something.” Joshua Weltman knows just how to do that, and teach others how to do it, too. An advertising creative director for more than 25 years and the Mad Men co-producer responsible for Don Draper’s credibility as an advertising genius, Weltman distills everything he knows about the art of persuasion into a playbook?of rules, principles, insights, insider anecdotes, and more, all tailored to the fast-changing life in the information economy.

Weltman identifies the four elements of selling—one of which is behind everything from a national television campaign to an email blast. There’s the ad that makes people curious—want to know more? That creates a sense of urgency—limited time offer! That increases market share—why we’re unique, or just better. And the ad that protects margins—thank you for your loyalty. And then Weltman explains how to employ these strategies, including: the six words that win business; the four kinds of stories; what to do if your product sucks; why lying in an ad will never pay off; why information reduces doubt; how to think like a force-multiplier; why different is better than better; why to remove jargon and acronyms and reveal ideas and relationships.

See your offering through the buyer’s eyes for more effective marketing.

Buyer Personas is the marketer’s actionable guide to learning what your buyer wants and how they make decisions. Written by the world’s leading authority on buyer personas, this book provides comprehensive coverage of a compelling new way to conduct buyer studies, plus practical advice on adopting the buyer persona approach to measurably improve marketing outcomes. Readers will learn how to segment their customer base, investigate each customer type, and apply a radically more relevant process of message selection, content creation, and distribution through the channels that earn the buyers’ trust. Rather than relying on generic data or guesswork to determine what the buyer wants, the buyer persona approach allows companies to ask the buyer directly and obtain more precise and actionable guidance.

Buyer personas are composite pictures of the people who buy solutions, services or products, crafted through a unique type of interview with the people the marketer wants to influence. This book provides step-by-step guidance toward implementing the buyer persona approach, with the advice of an internationally-respected expert.

• Learn who buys what, and why
• Understand your buyer’s goals and how you can address them
• Tailor your marketing activities to your buyer’s expectations
• See the purchase through the customer’s eyes

A recent services industry survey reports that 52 percent of their marketers have buyer personas, and another 28 percent expect to add them within the next two years – but only 14.6 percent know how to use them. To avoid letting such a valuable tool go to waste, access the expert perspective in Buyer Personas, and craft a more relevant marketing strategy.

If your organization wants to better understand customer experience and how it contributes to brand value, The Physics of Brand is the place to start. This book offers a practical framework that shows how brands interact with people in time and space — to create value for people, brand owners, and society.

The authors leave a smile in your mind as they weave neuroscience, micro and macroeconomics and systems thinking into a narrative equally rewarding for general managers, marketers and finance leaders. If you think branding is limited to communication, sales conversions, or logo design, this book will expand your worldview. If you want a more precise method to value brands, this book will light your hair on fire. 

Through the Time Model, you’ll learn why first moments are vital in creating long term brand memories, and you’ll find out how to design moments that lead to emotional engagement. You will also learn why time spent with a brand is an important and under-appreciated indicator of brand energy. 

The Space Model shows how brands operate in the real world of Brand Owners, Brand Handlers, Communities and People. The Jacob’s Ladder Model shows how brand signals ladder-up to brand value. These three models provide a new framework to assess the value of brands and provide the tools to design superior customer experiences.

The chapters ground the ideas in reality through case studies that include KIND, Smartwool, Patagonia and The Honest Company, with fun detours such as Snoop Dog and Willy Nelson sharing a bucket of KFC in an Amsterdam parking lot. The writing is as friendly as the ideas are elevated. Each chapter includes clear summaries, mind bending thought experiments and pleasant diversions.

This book is for leaders who want to improve the customer experience in a measurable way. The Physics of Brand will help you arrive at a rewarding destination. The book presents a brand-new way of thinking.

Part road-trip comedy and part social science experiment, a scientist and a journalist “shed fascinating light on what makes us laugh and why” (New York Post).

Two guys. Nineteen experiments. Five continents. 91,000 miles. The Humor Code follows the madcap adventures and oddball experiments of Professor Peter McGraw and writer Joel Warner as they discover the secret behind what makes things funny. In their search, they interview countless comics, from Doug Stanhope to Louis CK and travel across the globe from Norway to New York, from Palestine to the Amazon. It’s an epic quest, both brainy and harebrained, that culminates at the world’s largest comedy festival where the pair put their hard-earned knowledge to the test.

For the first time, they have established a comprehensive theory that answers the question “what makes things funny?” Based on original research from the Humor Research Lab (HuRL) at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the pair’s experiences across the globe, The Humor Code explains the secret behind winning the New Yorker cartoon caption contest, why some dead baby jokes are funnier than others, and whether laughter really is the best medicine.

Hilarious, surprising, and sometimes even touching, The Humor Code “lays out a convincing theory about how humor works, and why it’s an essential survival mechanism” (Mother Jones)

What makes things popular? If you said advertising, think again. People don’t listen to advertisements, they listen to their peers. But why do people talk about certain products and ideas more than others? Why are some stories and rumors more infectious? And what makes online content go viral?

Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger has spent the last decade answering these questions. He’s studied why New York Times articles make the paper’s own Most E-mailed list, why products get word of mouth, and how social influence shapes everything from the cars we buy to the clothes we wear to the names we give our children.

In Contagious, Berger reveals the secret science behind word-of-mouth and social transmission. Discover how six basic principles drive all sorts of things to become contagious, from consumer products and policy initiatives to workplace rumors and YouTube videos. Learn how a luxury steakhouse found popularity through the lowly cheesesteak, why anti-drug commercials might have actually increased drug use, and why more than 200 million consumers shared a video about one of the most boring products there is: a blender.

Contagious provides specific, actionable techniques for helping information spread—for designing messages, advertisements, and content that people will share. Whether you’re a manager at a big company, a small business owner trying to boost awareness, a politician running for office, or a health official trying to get the word out, Contagious will show you how to make your product or idea catch on.

Rapid changes in communication technologies shifted the media environment from one of scarcity to one characterized by abundance. Advertisers are paying more and more money to reach fewer and fewer people, as audiences consume endless streams of content across different platforms. When you can no longer buy enough attention for advertising to remain efficient — how do brands respond?

Spanning communication theory, neuroscience, creativity and innovation, media history, popular culture, branding, and emerging technologies, Paid Attention explores how ideas move people and how advertising can and should change in response to changes in the communication landscape.　Packed with real-world examples of campaigns from companies including Sony, Red Bull and HP, the book also contains practical advertising and branding templates and toolkits.

Topics covered include: a critical look at market research, modern theories of communication, the vanishing difference between content, media, and advertising, what ideas are and how to get them, and the future predictions.

Rank higher in search results with this guide to SEO and content building supremacy.

Google is not only the number one search engine in the world, it is also the number one website in the world. Only 5 percent of site visitors search past the first page of Google, so if you’re not in those top ten results, you are essentially invisible. Winning the Game of Googleopoly is the ultimate roadmap to Page One Domination. The POD strategy is what gets you on that super-critical first page of Google results by increasing your page views. You’ll learn how to shape your online presence for Search Engine Optimization, effectively speaking Google’s language to become one of the top results returned for relevant queries. This invaluable resource provides a plan that is universal to any business in any industry, and provides expert guidance on tailoring the strategy to best suit your organization. Coverage includes an explanation of the mechanics of a search, and how to tie your website, paid ads, online reputation, social media, content, images, and video into a winning SEO strategy that pushes you to the front of the line.

The Page One Domination strategy incorporates all the ways in which you can beef up your Internet presence and online reputation. This book is a clear, straightforward guide that will knock down the silos of the Internet and teach you exactly how to integrate all aspects of content creation into a synergistic, SEO strategy.

• Understand how search engines return results
• Design an effective, all-encompassing SEO strategy
• Create the content that gets page views and improves rank
• Optimize social media and video as part of an overall SEO plan

The rules of SEO are always changing, and following outdated rules can actually work against you, burying you at the bottom of the pile. This book will spark a paradigm shift in how you think about SEO and gives you the tools you need to craft a strategy tailored to your specific market. To be successful, you need to be on page one of Google, and Winning the Game of Googleopoly can show you how to get there.

Why do Internet, financial service, and beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why does repetition characterize anthems and ritual speech? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge.

Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form “common knowledge.” Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, knowledge of the knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. Michael Chwe applies this insight, with striking erudition, to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. He shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. For instance, people watching the Super Bowl know that many others are seeing precisely what they see and that those people know in turn that many others are also watching. This creates common knowledge, and advertisers selling products that depend on consensus are willing to pay large sums to gain access to it. Remarkably, a great variety of rituals and ceremonies, such as formal inaugurations, work in much the same way.

By using a rational-choice argument to explain diverse cultural practices, Chwe argues for a close reciprocal relationship between the perspectives of rationality and culture. He illustrates how game theory can be applied to an unexpectedly broad spectrum of problems, while showing in an admirably clear way what game theory might hold for scholars in the social sciences and humanities who are not yet acquainted with it.

In a new afterword, Chwe delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age.

Marketing today is out of control. With all the new marketing techniques accessible to the masses, it’s becoming harder and harder to stand out from the crowd. The result is more and more messages, hitting us more often in new and more intrusive ways. For customers, it’s a lot of noise.  Through her work with a wide range of organizations from small companies to professional service providers to Fortune 500 companies, Linda Popky has developed Dynamic Market Leverage(TM), an approach to help cut through the clutter, stand out, and effectively build business. Marketing Above the Noise takes a contrarian approach by not focusing on social media, digital marketing, or other new tactics, and instead helping organizations understand:  * The critical upfront work needed to really understand customers, markets and unmet needs * The value of consistent, focused messaging * Why empowering employees to effectively represent the brand is so critical * How to thrive in an age of user-generated content and customer driven marketing * Why it’s key not to confuse selling with installing  The book introduces the Dynamic Market Leverage Model, which measures marketing clout by looking at eight core marketing disciplines and five additional Leverage Factors that can help an organization focus on key aspects of their marketing function that will provide the most significant return on their marketing investment.  Today’s businesses need to stop trying to keep pace with the latest and greatest marketing tactics and instead focus on developing those long term strategies that build customer loyalty and convince prospects to buy. Yes, businesses need to be aware of and integrate new media and new approaches, but they need to do it in a way that makes sense for the business. They need to maintain a clear focus above the din of the roaring crowd–above the marketing fray.  Most organizations don’t have the luxury of being able to start from a clean slate to develop new marketing strategies. They have existing customers, existing channels and relationships, existing ways of doing business. With limited resources, they’re not able to integrate every new tactic as it appears and they’re not sure how to prioritize all of these options.  What’s needed is a timeless framework–a way of looking at marketing as tied to both business growth and the building and nurturing of ongoing customer engagement. It’s time to move the focus from social media and evangelists, sales and marketing alignment, and the latest hot cloud-based marketing tools, to what really counts: convincing customers to trust you with their business–not just once, but time and time again.

NEW Best Practices and Techniques for Growing Your Business with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn! Completely Updated!

• Five new chapters: planning/metrics, customer service, and much more

• New and revamped case studies

• New guest contributions from world-class experts, such as Charlene Li

• New, instantly actionable “To Do” lists after every chapter

• New Facebook discussion threads and much more!

Whatever your business or organizational goals, this book will help you use social networking to achieve them. Renowned social networking innovator Clara Shih brings together powerful new insights, best practices, and easy-to-use “To Do” lists packed with proven solutions from real-world case studies.

Writing for entrepreneurs and business professionals across marketing, sales, service, product development, and recruiting, Shih demonstrates how to move from tactical, reactive use of social networks toward strategic, proactive approaches–and how to accurately measure success.

This edition adds extensive new coverage, including hands-on techniques for hypertargeting, engaging customers through Twitter and LinkedIn, leveraging changing social norms, and much more. You’ll also find more than three dozen guest contributions from world-class experts such as author Don Tapscott and Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Piskorski, as well as a brand-new chapter on customer service and support, today’s fastest-growing area of business social networking.

Shih has even added new chapters focused on advice for small businesses, healthcare and education organizations, nonprofits, and political campaigns–making this the one indispensable social networking guide for every organization!

In the newest edition of his top-selling book, social media expert Dave Evans bypasses theory to provide you with practical, hands-on advice on developing, implementing, and measuring social media marketing campaigns. In what can be an overwhelming topic, he demystifies the jargon, dispels the myths, and helps you develop an effective, day-by-day plan.

Revised and updated with more than 100 pages of new material on all the latest developments, Evans includes new and updated coverage on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+; the latest on listening and analytics platforms; how to incorporate mobile and location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla into your plan; and more.

• Helps marketers, advertisers, and small business owners quickly develop effective, practical approaches to social media marketing campaigns
• Highlights the latest you should know about Facebook, Twitter, and Google+; as well as mobile- and location-based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla
• Shows you how to track and measure results and integrate that information into your overall marketing plan
• Features case studies, step-by-step instructions, and hands-on tutorials

If you’ve been seeking ways to break down social media marketing into tasks you can handle and campaigns that deliver, this is the book you need.

Search has changed everything. Has your business harnessed its full potential?

A business’s search strategy can have a dramatic impact on how consumers interact with that business. But even more importantly, search engine activity provides amazingly useful data about customer behavior, needs, and motivations. In this non-technical book for executives, business owners, and marketers, search engine strategy guru Vanessa Fox―who created Google’s portal for site owners, Google Webmaster Central―explains what every marketer or business owner needs to understand about search rankings, search data, comprehensive search strategies, and integrating your strategy into the businesses processes.

• Updated statistics, tools, and recommendations
• Details about the latest changes from Google, Bing, and the overall search landscape
• Explanation and recommendations related to Google’s substantial new search algorithm, know as “Panda”
• Discussion of the changing landscape of the integration of search and social media, including the addition of Google+ to the mix

Traditional marketing isn’t enough anymore. Businesses need to evolve as customer behavior evolves. Marketing in the Age of Google shows you how.

The benchmark book on to the effects and implications of social media on our daily lives, and how businesses can harness its power.

Socialnomics is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand the implications of social media on our daily lives and how businesses can tap the power of social media to increase their sales, cut their marketing costs, and reach consumers directly. In this revised and updated second edition, author Erik Qualman presents new material based on meeting with 75 Fortune 1000 companies, 50 colleges and universities, and over 100 small businesses & non-profits since the first edition. Qualman’s materials have been used from IBM to NASA to Harvard to local businesses.

• Lists the top ten easy opportunities that companies and organization miss when it comes to social media
• Describes where social media should reside in an organization and the necessary building blocks for success
• Explains why over 50 percent of companies still block social media to their employees and why this is a detriment to success
• Shares proper training methods for your ENTIRE organization on social media; not just the chosen few
• Reviews the top companies, organizations and individuals using social media, explaining what separates them from other companies and how to replicate their success

Social media can transform your business and your relationship with consumers. Discover what social media can do for you, and what you can do for others while using social media.

We’re told marketing is hard. That it requires months of analysis, weeks of brainstorming, and years of consistent implementation. To succeed in marketing, you need the fortitude of General Patton, the genius of Don Draper, and the cash reserves of Warren Buffet. WRONG.

One week. That’s all it takes for most small and medium-sized businesses to dramatically improve their marketing. And let’s face it, most business owners do very little marketing, and what they do is not particularly effective.

Business owners often don’t know how to best market their company, or are too busy working to make time to promote it. What they don’t realize is that effective marketing doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming.

Mark Satterfield’s The One Week Marketing Plan lays out a step-by-step system entrepreneurs can put in place in just five business days. This “set it and forget it” strategy works all day, every day to bring in new business. Tailored to each company’s niche market, this innovative plan can generate a consistent stream of customers for an out-of-pocket expense of as little as $300.

Satterfield, founder and CEO of Gentle Rain Marketing, Inc., has more than two decades of experience helping clients in more than 75 niche industries grow their businesses without cold calling or hard selling. Now, in The One Week Marketing Plan, his strategies and wisdom are accessible and realistic for entrepreneurs, self-employed professionals, and business owners looking to move in a new direction.

One week. That’s all it takes. So let’s get started.

Why are people around the world so very different? What makes us live, buy, even love as we do? The answers are in the codes.

In The Culture Code, internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert Clotaire Rapaille reveals for the first time the techniques he has used to improve profitability and practices for dozens of Fortune 100 companies. His groundbreaking revelations shed light not just on business but on the way every human being acts and lives around the world.

Rapaille’s breakthrough notion is that we acquire a silent system of codes as we grow up within our culture. These codes—the Culture Code—are what make us American, or German, or French, and they invisibly shape how we behave in our personal lives, even when we are completely unaware of our motives. What’s more, we can learn to crack the codes that guide our actions and achieve new understanding of why we do the things we do.

Rapaille has used the Culture Code to help Chrysler build the PT Cruiser—the most successful American car launch in recent memory. He has used it to help Procter & Gamble design its advertising campaign for Folger’s coffee – one of the longest lasting and most successful campaigns in the annals of advertising. He has used it to help companies as diverse as GE, AT&T, Boeing, Honda, Kellogg, and L’Oréal improve their bottom line at home and overseas. And now, in The Culture Code, he uses it to reveal why Americans act distinctly like Americans, and what makes us different from the world around us.

In The Culture Code, Dr. Rapaille decodes two dozen of our most fundamental archetypes—ranging from sex to money to health to America itself—to give us “a new set of glasses” with which to view our actions and motivations. Why are we so often disillusioned by love? Why is fat a solution rather than a problem? Why do we reject the notion of perfection? Why is fast food in our lives to stay? The answers are in the Codes.

Understanding the Codes gives us unprecedented freedom over our lives. It lets us do business in dramatically new ways. And it finally explains why people around the world really are different, and reveals the hidden clues to understanding us all.

“Account planning exists for the sole purpose of creating advertising that truly connects with consumers. While many in the industry are still dissecting consumer behavior, extrapolating demographic trends, developing complex behavioral models, and measuring Pavlovian salivary responses, Steel advocates an approach to consumer research that is based on simplicity, common sense, and creativity–an approach that gains access to consumers’ hearts and minds, develops ongoing relationships with them, and, most important, embraces them as partners in the process of developing and advertising.

A witty, erudite raconteur and teacher, Steel describes how successful account planners work in partnership with clients, consumer, and agency creatives. He criticizes research practices that, far from creating relationships, drive a wedge between agencies and the people they aim to persuade; he suggests new ways of approaching research to cut through the BS and get people to show their true selves; and he shows how the right research, when translated into a motivating and inspiring brief, can be the catalyst for great creative ideas. He draws upon his own experiences and those of colleagues in the United States and abroad to illustrate those points, and includes examples of some of the most successful campaigns in recent years, including Polaroid, Norwegian Cruise Line, Porsche, Isuzu, “got milk?” and others.

The message of this book is that well-thought-out account planning results in better, more effective marketing and advertising for both agencies and clients. And also makes an evening in front of the television easier to bear for the population at large.”

Price, quality, availability, and service–these are all aspects of your business that your competitors can imitate. But your brand is unique. In this book, an experienced brand manager shows you how to turn your brand from the logo on your letterhead into the driving force behind your company’s growth, operational success, and long-term profitability. Drawing from methods developed in his highly successful consulting and training programs, Scott Davis provides a thorough grounding in brand strategy. He presents tested ways to assess the value of your brand, maximize its potential, and use it to better develop, sell, price, and market your products and services. His hands-on guide also includes extensive case studies and worksheets to help your company capitalize on the most under-leveraged–and the most powerful–asset it owns.