WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• There are many myths around communications ideas and what you really need is a practical road map to select which type are best for specific brands
• Only by cataloguing, evaluating and building a form of architecture can we truly begin to understand ideas
• The communications industry has at the same time too many and not enough ideas – too many specific to a medium and not enough ‘bloody hell that’s brilliant’ ideas
• Ideas used to have a simple, passive function: to inform or entertain in the hope of eliciting a purchase reaction – now advertisers are actively looking to change consumer behaviour
• Communication ideas are constructs that a brand uses as a foundation or stepping stone to help express it self
• Big ideas have an existence independent of a particular medium

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

• Rigour and magic have always been the two contrasting elements of a decent communication idea: it has to work, and it needs a spark
• There is a history of communication ideas from pre-1980 (advertising), 1980-95 (amplified ideas), 1995-2002 (through the line), to 2002 (brand ideas)
• The 7 main types of idea help provide context (advertising, contextual, symbiotic, activation, physical, emotional, brand), with lots of examples
• HOCOs are Higher Order Communication Objectives: work out whether you want to be top of mind, own values or a role, reinforce product attributes, link to a target audience passion, or link to aperture usage (specific occasion)
• You can use the ideas to generate strategic ideas: immersion, observation insight, brand atomisation (looking at specific small attributes) and ABC2 (Audience, Brand, Category, Culture)
• Techniques for developing execution ideas include:
  • What if the brand were 500 years old?
  • What if we only had £1?
  • Throw in a random word and pursue it in relation to the strategy
  • Write down the worst ideas you can think of
  • What would the brand obituary be?
  • Read the bit of the newspaper you usually ignore

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

• Not much. You can use the book to work through most brand issues

The one-sentence summary

More and more people are using their free time to become involved in active participation.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• In the post-industrial world, there has been a huge increase in the number of people paid to think and talk, rather than to produce or transport objects.
• We now have free time on a scale like never before, but for most of the second half of the last century, most people just used it to watch TV.
• TV viewing is now in decline for the first time, and the world is beginning to use the Cognitive Surplus generated by free time to become involved in active participation rather than passive consumption.
• Subtitled ‘Creativity and generosity in a connected age’, the book uses a mixture of example, analysis and social theory to suggest why a new generation is making choices that contribute to a greater whole.
• We now have the means, motive and opportunity to experiment with ideas at almost no cost, and on a huge base of potential users. Tapping this surplus benefits everybody.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

• The cognitive surplus, newly forged from previously disconnected islands of time and talent, is just raw material. To get any value out of it, we have to make it mean or do things.
• Old logic is television logic. TV audiences didn’t create any real value for each other. In fact, TV raises material aspirations and anxiety. We need to rethink our concept of media – it’s not something we consume, it’s something we use.
• The internet succumbs to post-Gutenberg economics. No one in particular owns it, and everyone can use it.
• There are three types of group production:

1. Private sector: a group does something for less than its selling price

2. Public sector: obliged to work together on something of perceived high value

3. Social: value creation without price signals and managerial oversight

• People are ‘hopelessly committed’ both to being individual and collective. In chemistry, bonding atoms have valence. In social production, contributors need a ‘positive normative or ethical valence toward the process’.
• Some suggestions for harnessing the cognitive surplus:
• Starting: start small; ask why?; behaviour follows opportunity; default to social
• Growing: 100 users are harder than 12 and 1000; people differ, more people differ more; intimacy doesn’t scale; support a supportive culture
• Adapting: the faster you learn, the sooner you’ll be able to adapt; success causes more problems than failure; clarity is violence; try anything, try everything

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

It’s a great idea but it could have been expressed in an essay rather than a book.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• This book provides more detailed substantiation for the claims made in his previous book Affluenza. It looks deeper into the origins of the virus and outlines the political, economic and social climate in which it has grown.
• Selfish capitalism started as Thatcherism and Reaganomics and eventually prevailed in most other English-speaking nations too. Interestingly, most mainland Western European nations remain unaffected.
• We have become more miserable and distressed since the seventies, thanks to successive governments pushing the cause of personal capitalism.
• Whilst there has been a massive increase in the wealth of the wealthy, there has been no rise in average wages.
• We need to recapture a sense of self-worth and personal wellbeing if we are to overcome it.
• Erich Fromm's theory of American consumerism, said the choice in the 50s was 'to have or to be', and that we have become Marketing Characters 'based on experiencing oneself as a commodity' – nothing much has changed.
• In 1993 Kasser & Ryan published 'A dark side of the American dream', which showed that those who put financial success ahead of emotional development and making the world a better place suffered more depression and anxiety.

WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT

• Humans have four basic needs:
  • To feel safe and secure
  • To feel competent
  • To feel connected to others
  • To feel autonomously and authentically engaged in work and play
• Self-doubt correlates with materialism, so selfish capitalism undermines these needs
• Everyone feels that 'enough' income is 10% more than they have, although the elite are 130 times richer than the poorest – the greatest gap ever.
• The range of goods regarded as 'essential' in a household has increased dramatically. Even when prices drop, 'better' models become imperative.
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy assumes that unpleasant emotions (stress) result from inaccurate thinking, and is now offered as a quick fix on the NHS.
• Terror Management Theory suggests that politicians can get elected by manipulating collective fear of attack, based on our innate need for security.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

• Not much. It is a rolling narrative so you have to dig for nuggets.

The one-sentence summary

Creating loyalty beyond reason requires emotional connections that generate the highest levels of love and respect for your brand.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

• The idealism of love is the new realism of business. By building respect and inspiring love, business can move the world
• Once there were products, then trademarks, then brands, and now lovemarks
• For great brands to survive, they must create “loyalty beyond reason”
• The secret is to use mystery, sensuality and intimacy
• Consumers, not companies, own lovemarks
• Some truths about love: humans need it; it means more than liking a lot; it is about responding, about delicate intuitive sensing; it takes time; and it cannot be commanded or demanded
• A picture may be worth a thousand words, but terrific stories are right up there with them. A great story can never be told too often
• Great ideas, like humor (sic), come from the corners of the mind, out on the edge. That’s why humor can break up log-jams in business and personal relationships

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

• The book is attempting to redefine brand thinking, and is thought provoking
• The warning signs of brands descending into generic stuff are: consistent, interchangeable, impersonal, abundant, homogenous, lowest price
• “Brands are out of juice” is an interesting notion: worn out from overuse; no longer mysterious; can’t understand the new consumer; struggle with good old-fashioned competition; have been captured by formula; have been smothered by creeping conservatism
• Human beings are powered by emotion, not by reason. The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions
• Primary emotions: joy, sorrow, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust can be outstripped by more complex secondary emotions: love, guilt, shame, pride, envy, jealousy

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

• The action points at the end are all pretty hackneyed stuff: be passionate, involve customers, celebrate loyalty, find, tell and retell great stories, accept responsibility
• Pretty much all the examples are from Saatchi clients, and at times it just sounds like a self-trumpeting agency brochure

The one-sentence summary

• The best ideas aren’t always complicated and the incredibly straightforward stuff is often overlooked in the search for a complex answer
• Many smart people lack the set of essential skills which could roughly be described as “common sense”
• There are 7 principles here that can be adapted for attacking most everyday problems

1. Many things are simple – despite our tendency to complicate them
2. You need to know what you’re trying to do – many don’t
3. There is always a sequence of events – make the journey in your head
4. Things don’t get done if people don’t do them – strategic wafflers beware!
5. Things rarely turn out as expected – so plan for the unexpected
6. Things either are or they aren’t – don’t fudge things
7. Look at things from other’s point of view – it will help your expectations

• In a world of over complication, asking some simple questions can really make your life easier. For example:

~ What would be the simplest thing to do here?

~ Describing an issue or a solution in less than 25 words

~ Telling it as though you were telling a six year old

~ Asking whether there is a simpler way

• Try writing the minutes of a meeting before the meeting – then you’ll know what you want to get out of it
• It highlights the difference between duration and effort. “How long will it take you to have a look at that?” “About an hour.” But when?
• It explains the reasons why things don’t get done: confusion, over-commitment, inability – usually busy people never say there’s a problem!
• Plan your time assuming you will have interruptions – the “hot date” scenario

• The orientation is very much based on a project management perspective, which is fine if you are one, but others may prefer to cherry-pick the most applicable ideas
• Anyone who flies by the seat of their pants would have to be very disciplined to apply these ideas. It’s a bit like dieting