Stephen King was one of the two founding fathers of the ‘Account Planning’ discipline. On his retirement from J. Walter Thompson (JWT), the advertising agency published a collection of Stephen King’s papers that were written between 1967-1985. A Masterclass in Brand Planning is comprised of 20 of these essays. I’ll summarise five concepts from the book here for those who haven’t read it.

Sir John Hegarty was a founding member of Saatchi & Saatchi, TBWA London and Bartle Bogle Hegarty. In his book Hegarty on Creativity the advertising legend issues 50 thoughts on creative thinking. Here’s my favourite 6.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell explores the magic moment when an idea, trend or social behaviour crosses a threshold and spreads like wildfire. Gladwell identifies three critical factors that help ideas reach a tipping point.

“Copywriting Is…” by Andrew Boulton covers 30-or-so thoughts on how to think like a Copywriter. Here’s a summary of 8 of my favourites.

In 2021 Andy Nairn, the founder of advertising agency Lucky Generals, published Go Luck Yourself. The book covers 40 ways in which a brand can stack the odds in their favour.

In 2020, The B2B Institute from LinkedIn published a report called “2030 B2B Trends: Contrarian Ideas for the Next Decade”. Here’s a summary of five themes that the paper covers.

In 2016 James Hurman published “The Case For Creativity”. The book aims to answer a s seemingly simple question, does creativity make advertising more effective? Here’s three lessons from the book for those who haven’t read it.

In 2008 Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein and economist Richard Thaler published Nudge. The book introduces “nudge theory”, a system for influencing decision making without restricting options. In order to nudge people towards making certain decisions, Thaler & Sunstein advocate for “choice architecture”; the practice of influencing choices by organising the context in which they are made. Here’s seven tools in the choice architecture toolbox.

The Tyranny of Metrics is written by History Professor Jerry Z. Muller. In the book, Muller explores the often overlooked pitfalls that result from focussing too narrowly on performance metrics. I’ll summarise it here for those who haven’t read it.

How Brands Grow Park 2 is written by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Where the original book covered the theory of how brands grow, Part 2 explores how to put this theory into practice. I’ll summarise it here for those who haven’t yet read it.

In Predatory Thinking, Dave Trott offers a masterclass in how to outwit the competition. The book draws lessons from from philosophy, military combat & colourful characters such as Picasso and Socrates. Here’s five things I learnt.

George Lois is a member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame, the Advertising Hall of Fame and the Copywriters Hall of Fame. His book, Damn Good Advice is full of lessons learnt from a career as one of world’s most famous ad executives. This summary highlights five of my favourites.

Cathy O’Neil is a data scientist who studied maths at Harvard, taught at MIT & worked at D. E. Shaw. In her book, Weapons of Math Destruction, she expresses concern about algorithmic influence in a number of fields. I’ll summarise the book here for anyone who hasn’t read it.

Richard Rumelt is Professor of Business & Society at UCLA. In 2011 his book Good Strategy Bad Strategy brought clarity to the theory of strategy and illustrated it with practical examples. I’ll summarise its central themes for those who haven’t read it.

In The Anatomy of Humbug, Paul Feldwick outlines six theories of how advertising works: Salesmanship, seduction, salience, social connection, spin, showbiz. I’ll summarise them all below.

In their book The Long and the Short of It, Les Binet and Peter Field analyse the IPA’s Databank of 996 campaigns that were entered into the IPA Effectiveness Awards between 1980 and 2010. Here’s 8 lessons from the study for those who haven’t yet read the book.

In his book Delusions of Brandeur, Ryan Wallman takes a satirical swipe at the nonsense that exists within our industry. The book is beautifully designed by …Gasp! and published by …Gasp! Books. Here’s my 5 favourite spreads.

Since 2010, Professor Byron Sharp’s book How Brands Grow has become one of marketing’s most influential texts. It concludes with 11 law-like patterns, discovered by analysing data spanning many decades, countries & categories. I’ll summarise the laws, along with a supporting quote, here.

In Seducing the Subconscious Robert Heath makes a counterintuitive claim: The less attention an ad receives the more powerful its affect. The book supports the theory with research on attention, processing, filtering, learning and memory. This post summarises the research as well as Heath’s provocative conclusion.

In his book Alchemy, the Ogilvy Vice Chairman, Rory Sutherland describes the surprising power of ideas that don’t make sense. In the opening pages Rory lists 11 rules of Alchemy. I’ll summarise them here in case anyone finds them useful.