And Now a Few Words from Me: Advertising's Leading Critic Lays Down the Law, Once and for All

...i'm not often a blesfemous man but this book IS Advertising Bible. you know nothing about advertising till you read THIS. it's a humane but yet frenzy and straight-talking study on how you SHOULDN'T make advertising; what often made mistakes to avoid. once you read it you go, "...so that's what advertising is all about. can't wait to get started..." now i often measure advertising(mine, others') by what would Bob say about it. hey, if you won't read this book you ain't never gonna know what advertising really is.

"Do not be so blindly determined to `think outside the box' that you are constructing your own coffins." This quote, which comes on page 127 of Bob Garfield's new book, "And Now a Few Words from Me," could be the epigraph for the entire book, or indeed for just about every ad review Garfield has written for "Advertising Age" over the last 18 years. An amused and often appalled observer of the wretched excesses of TV advertising, Garfield in his new book eviscerates a number of failed campaigns with the skill of a master surgeon reviewing a botched heart transplant. The operation's not a success, Garfield points out, if the patient dies. (And sometimes the patient DOES die: an abstruse commercial for a Virginia bank, he notes, led to the failure of both the bank and the ad agency.) As Garfield sees it, the problem with much of TV advertising is simple: too many ad copywriters get caught up in the "creativity" of what they do and forget their purpose is to sell products, period. Sometimes the problem is merely a bad choice of celebrity spokesperson--say, hulking millionaire Charles Barkley pitching econobox Hyundais, or red-meat-eschewing Cybill Shepherd as national spokesperson for beef. Just as often, however, ad writers simply whiz past their target audience (the "Dick" campaign for Miller Lite) or offend viewers to the very core of their being (Ford and GM using the 9/11 tragedy as a pretext for great deals on Explorers and Grand Ams). Garfield, as always, is witty, elegant yet blunt about these failures: "Don't roll your eyes and dismiss the negatives," he tells his readers, "because if you do, in due course, that's exactly what your target audience will do with you." He also insists that ad writers--despite their frequent statements to the contrary--are subject to the same rules of morality, decency and civility the rest of us are. He is particularly scathing about Calvin Klein: "(H)e is not an advertiser. He is an arsonist...(T)o portray children as sex toys parading before adults is the line that cannot be crossed." But Garfield notes that many advertisers lose sight of a basic fact: if you offend your audience, you are lost forever. The creative director of one agency once wrote Garfield to the effect that if he found TV advertising so offensive, he shouldn't watch. Garfield's reply: "Don't watch? Don't watch what? If advertising were programming, a viewer could make decisions about what to watch. But--I'll say this one last time--advertising isn't, so a viewer can't, so what's left to watch, if you choose not to be assaulted by advertising, is nothing. Which destroys the whole medium, you imbecile." "And Now a Few Words from Me" is a fast (200 pages), trenchant, often laugh-out-loud funny look at TV advertising that deserves a readership far beyond ad agencies. Anybody who watches TV will find it a great read.

Not only should this book required reading for those just getting in to the advertisng business, it should be required reading for those already in the business. Garfield provides a reality check for those who need to know, and especially whose who have forgotten, that the purpose of advertising is to sell products. This extremely witty, insightful book reminds us of some of the ways inwhich advertising has failed at this, and sometimes failed on a spectacular level. Each page contains lessons to be learned, and for some, re-learned.

Garfield makes you laugh with his pun-filled, brutal analysis of what's bad advertising and what constitutues bad judgement in advertising. He credits advertising with some pretty heavy lifting in the economy -- which is refreshing. Garfield's smart and funny writing helps you quite painlessly get through some important thinking about consumerism and marketing. The book is divided into 10 short chapters (or as Garfield says in the intro, "The Ten Commandments of Advertising , brought to you by God.") which could practically stand on their own. This book is not just for people in the ad biz -- but also for people interested in marketing tactics, marketing strategy and the relationship between media and the consumers they try to influence.

"And Now A Few Words From Me" is the much needed wake-up call the advertising industry needs. On the heels of the worst 2 years in 40 for our industry, we would all be wise to heed Garfield's "Commandments," for while the industry certainly has changed, it's basic tenets have not. We are hired to move product, and we do that by connecting with our target consumers, not by impressing our agency peers while alienating and furthering the distrust of the general public. Wake up folks. If we want our Clients to spend more money, then we need to sell more stuff.