101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising

There’s a link to the Ad Contrarian’s blog just to the right of these words, but if you’d rather consume Bob Hoffman’s wisdom in a collected, arranged form that costs a very small sum of money, buy his book.

If you’re in the UK it costs £2.18, and for that you get pearls of wisdom such as these:

1. After 100 years in the agency business, I still have no idea how to create great ads. It’s a code I haven’t cracked. But I do know how to sell them. Get your real creative leader together with their real decision maker, and get everyone else out of the fucking way.

2. We have been told by new age charlatans that “we’re all creative people” and that all we have to do is free ourselves from the artificial restraints of our society and culture and all our creativity will flow forth.

Bullshit.

3. Next time some digi-dork vomits up the old “no one watches commercials anymore” line, smack him in the head from me.

So it’s a compendium of rare, brilliantly written sense in this crazy old business of ours.

What more could £2.18 buy you?