Our Marketing & Design Book Review section exists to help separate genuinely useful thinking from recycled buzzwords, overhyped frameworks, and advice that could have been a two-page blog post instead of a 300-page hardback.
We’ll read the books so you don’t have to, or at least help you decide which ones are actually worth your time. Expect honest reviews, practical takeaways, and the occasional raised eyebrow when a “revolutionary” idea turns out to be something marketers have been doing since 1987.
Some books will inspire. Some will confuse. Some will make us wonder how the author stretched one idea across twelve chapters. Either way, we’ll overthink them so you can spend more time doing marketing, and less time reading about it.
Book Review : Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Some ideas disappear almost immediately. Others hang around for years. You can forget an entire presentation before you’ve reached the car park, yet somehow remember an advertising slogan from 1997, the plot of a film you…
Book Review : Hacking the Human Mind by Richard Shotton and MichaelAaron Flicker. There are two kinds of books on marketing. The first promise to make known “the secret” for influencing customers. The second point is to explain that neither your customers nor you were ever making completely rational decisions from the start. The book…
Book Review : Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by Roy Schwartz, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei. Modern business has an odd problem. People say they lack time, yet they send emails so long you need a packed lunch to finish them. Smart Brevity aims to fix this issue. The main idea…
Book Review : This is Marketing by Seth Godin. Many people still think marketing is just about convincing others to buy things they might not really need. Seth Godin has spent much of his career making the case for a different approach. This Is Marketing isn’t focused on tricks, hacks, or chasing the newest algorithm.…
Book Review : Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide by John Cleese. Many people in business still believe that creativity is only for designers, writers, musicians, and those with especially colourful socks. John Cleese challenges that idea in less than 150 pages. Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide is not about turning you into an…
Book Review : Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. In marketing, it’s easy to think that any book written before social media, smartphones, or AI is outdated and belongs on a shelf somewhere. Confessions of an Advertising Man politely suggests otherwise. Published in 1963, David Ogilvy’s classic is still one of the most…