Badvertising: An Exposé of Insipid, Insufferable, Ineffective Advertising
- 4h 15m
- Jim Morris
- Red Wheel/Weiser
- 2021
How can the ad industry even exist when almost all of the products that it produces fall on a continuum from flawed to failed? What is it about this industry and the process of creating, selling, and producing ads that causes so much advertising to be so bad?
These are the questions answered in Badvertising. A provocative, truth-to-power exposé of ad agencies’ flaws, foibles, and failings—and why they matter to the consumer and to those in the business. Morris, an advertising legend known as “Tagline Jim,” surveys myriad advertising “agents of stupidity.” Hilarious, horrifying, and insightful, each chapter is a grenade lobbed into America’s ad bunkers.
Badvertising is a candid, never-seen-before accumulation of real-world don’ts and more don’ts, providing valuable cautionary tales of advertising’s stupid side.
About the Authors
Jim Morris is an award-winning advertising copywriter and strategist. For 20 years, he has run a thriving freelance business, specializing in taglines and other short-form brand articulations. A former instructor at Columbia College, Jim speaks at MENSA, colleges, and ad agencies, and has been an occasional columnist for Adweek, Brandweek, and Screen. Learn more at www.taglinejim.com.
Drew Eric Whitman (a.k.a. “Dr. Direct”) is known internationally as a dynamic consultant and trainer who smashes old advertising myths like a china-shop bull. Teaching the psychology behind the response for more than 37 years, he worked for the direct-marketing division of the largest ad agency in Philadelphia, was senior copywriter for the country’s leading direct-to-the-consumer insurance company, and associate copy chief for catalog giant Day-Timers. His work has been used by companies ranging from small retail shops to giant, multi-million dollar corporations, including: the Advertising Specialty Institute, American Legion, Amoco, and Texaco, and many others. As a popular speaker at marketing conferences worldwide, his intensive AdPOWER! Clinic teaches business people how to use consumer psychology to boost the effectiveness of their ads, emails, brochures, sales letters, Websites, and more. Visit Drew online at DrewEricWhitman.com.
In this Book
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Lest We Forget Consumers
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Selling by Telling Stories
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The Big Fat Hippo
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Wants vs. Needs
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Overthink
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Humoroids
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Executive Blindness
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Faux vs. True Cleverness
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Hack-itis
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Conventional Stupidity
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Negaphobia
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Lost Time
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Lacka Likability
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Simplistification
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Neuromarketing Hubris
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Segmental Illness
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The Metrics Mess
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Impossible Job Descriptions
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Devalued Language
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Fear of the Unexampled
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Causation Correlation Confusion
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Second-Guessing
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Me Me Me-ness
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The Businessoid Myth
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Huh?
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What We Know
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What We Don't Exactly Know
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What We Can Do
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Open Letter to Ad Agencies
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In Defense of Advertising
