Book Review : The Choice Factory by Richard Shotton. Many people in marketing like to think customers carefully compare products, look at features, consider value, and then make logical choices. The Choice Factory by Richard Shotton spends about 200 pages showing why this belief is a bit too hopeful. Luckily, the book explains this in…
Book Review : Storytelling Exhibitions by Philip Hughes. Many people assume exhibitions are just quiet rooms filled with objects, while visitors stroll through and try to make sense of them. Philip Hughes’s book, Storytelling Exhibitions, shows that today’s exhibitions aim for much more than that. Exhibitions now try to create real feelings for visitors, and…
Book Review : Human First Marketing by Phil Treagus-Evans. There’s a strange trend in modern marketing where brands spend enormous amounts of time trying to sound human while simultaneously removing every actual human element from the process. More automation. More AI-generated content. More so-called personalised experiences, but no real person behind the words. Phil Treagus-Evans’s…
Book Review : Brains On Fire by Robbin Phillips, Greg Cordell, Geno Church & Spike Jones. There’s a particular kind of optimism in modern marketing that suggests if we automate enough emails, optimise enough funnels, and post enough short-form video content, customers will eventually fall lovingly into our sales pipeline. Brains on Fire offers a…
Book Review : Alchemy by Rory Sutherland. There’s a comforting belief in marketing that people are rational. That given the right information, presented clearly enough, they will make sensible decisions. Alchemy by Rory Sutherland exists to gently, brilliantly, and repeatedly destroy that belief. The Big Idea (Spoiler: Logic Is Overrated) Sutherland’s central argument is both…
Book Review : They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. There’s a moment in every marketing meeting where someone says, “We should create more content.” No one is entirely sure what that means, but it usually results in a blog post nobody asked for, answering a question nobody had. They Ask, You Answer by Marcus…
Book Review : Building a StoryBrand 2.0 by Donald Miller. There’s a particular kind of confidence that creeps into marketing after a few strategy sessions, the belief that if we just explain things thoroughly enough, people will understand. Add a bit more context. Refine the messaging. Maybe a diagram. Building a StoryBrand 2.0 arrives as…
Book Review : The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert W. Bly. The Copywriter’s Handbook has long been considered one of the foundational texts of modern copywriting. First published decades before the rise of social media marketing, programmatic advertising, or AI-driven content tools, the book might easily be mistaken for a relic of another marketing era. But…
Book Review : Atomic Habits by James Clear. At first glance, Atomic Habits by James Clear doesn’t appear to belong on a marketing reading list. It’s not a book about brand strategy, customer journeys, or campaign performance. Yet that’s precisely why it deserves a place on the modern marketer’s bookshelf. Marketing is a profession built…
Book Review: Guerilla Marketing – Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business. by Jay Conrad Levinson. If you run a website called The Overthinker’s Guide to Modern Marketing, there is a certain irony in recommending a book that basically says: “Stop overthinking. Go do something bold.” And yet, here we…