The "No Stupider Than Any Other Father's Day Sale" Sale

I am kicking off the summer reading season with the best price of the century on the Marketers Are From Mars, Consumers Are From New Jersey ebook. For a brief time (hey, in geological terms 1,000 years is a brief time) the ebook will be available for only 99¢.

This is to encourage you to do more reading and less searching for naughty pictures of celebrities. Leave that to me.

If you need more encouragement to buy the book, remember Sunday is Father's Day. I don't know what that has to do with anything, but everyone else seems to think it's a good reason to badger you with annoying ads.

Also, let's not forget I paid good money for all these Amazon reviews...

Need More Bob Hoffman's!

Jeffrey Summers,  May 7, 2015

Years of successful experience are bound to include great stories that yield great insight. This book from Bob is full of them. I love his no-nonsense approach to business, advertising and life.

This will shake you out of your jargon induced comaI. Beavis, May 7, 2015
This is an excellent book that gives anyone in the business a good dose of reality. It is a quick read and Bob's writing is very entertaining. I laughed out loud quite a few times. You may not agree with everything Bob has to say but his no bulls*** message will have you questioning many of our business' perceived truths.

If The World Would Only Listen To Bob

George Tannenbaum,  May 14, 2015

If marketers would only listen to Bob, advertising would be good again. In a world where common sense is all too uncommon, Bob brings intelligence, wisdom and persuasion to bear. And makes the bombastic bulls*** ers look like the shams they are.

"I'd love to have these things printed in one place so ...

Chris Pyle,  May 18, 2015

This book is a riot. By that I mean, it will make you laugh uproariously and might also lead you to punch a deserving media buyer or ad agency rep in the face. I check the Ad Contrarian blog daily and have often thought, "I'd love to have these things printed in one place so I can refer back to them." Well, here is that one place. All nice and tidy. In fact, if you have slightly larger than normal pockets, you can put this book in your pocket. I carried it around this weekend and read it during my kids' sporting events. I received strange looks as I burst into laughter at inopportune moments. I seriously want to buy Bob a beer. If you are in marketing, do your boss, your clients and yourself a favor and read this.

A marketer doesn't get his wings when you buy this book

The Daily Boss,  May 18, 2015

This is the best book about marketing since - ever! Funny, entertaining, and the truth. In other words, the opposite of marketing. 

Quit Kotler, have more sex.

Luis G. P. Davidson "guime",  May 20, 2015

I always leave my kindle lying around to impress people. So to have the latest Hoffman book at the top of my reading list, really made me look good. I not only sound smarter and handsome around women: my family and friends either wink or tap me on the back, without the need to talk about the book directly. It's that speechless acknowledgement of "yeah, we know". Co-leagues now include me in their power lunches, happy hours, and weekend golf plans, even senior management. Well, this book has been great to me. I will probably try to read a few pages soon, when all this beautiful girls stop to obsess over me.

Best Diet Book Ever Written.

J. Locktov,  May 21, 2015

Buy Bob's book. Read Bob's book. Lose 10 pounds of bulls***. Immediately.

Can you handle the truth? Laughter makes it go down easier.

Jon P "Marketing practitioner and perpetual student", May 31, 2015

You could say this book is about how mergers and acquisitions have ruined the advertising business. Or it’s about the mass fantasy of the effectiveness of social media marketing, content marketing and online advertising. Or the utter failure of ad agencies and marketers to capitalize on the most lucrative market in the history of the world.

 For me, it’s really about the demise of critical thinking in our industry (what precious little there was to begin with).

Written by a veteran advertising writer and agency owner, this book is a smack upside the head for those who work in the business of marketing. It offers laugh-out-loud moments and refreshing common sense for fellow contrarians who don’t take themselves too seriously.
As a group, marketing people have been living in a delusional bubble, and the author is trying his level best to let some of the air out of it. Sadly, he concludes it’s not likely to happen. Because our industry already has too much money, reputation, and infrastructure invested in delusional thinking. But the good news is, this is a great opportunity for those who are perceptive enough to recognize it and brave enough to exploit it.
As the author points out, we’ve made great strides in recognizing and channeling the often illogical impulses that drive consumer purchasing. Yet within the communications industry we pretend to be personally immune from the same illogical behavior patterns. Recognizing you have a problem is the first step toward correcting it. So, with equal parts wit, sarcasm and brutal honesty, Bob suggests how we can—as he might put it—pull our heads out of our asses.

A laugh out loud Swiftean riot.

John Hofmeister June 3, 2015

I smell a sequel

Tony Mariani,  June 4, 2015

As a regular reader of Bob Hoffman's blog, The Ad Contrarian, I enjoy the comments as much as I enjoy Bob's post. Nary a column goes by that he hasn't raised the ire of the new age adverti and all their tinker bell fairy dust social media bs. Love the book and looking forward to the sequel.

 If you've gotten this far,  you really ought to buy the damn thing.

The 25 Billion Dollar Delusion

How can it be that $25 billion in media billings has gone into review this year? It is astounding and unprecedented. But I have a theory...

What if there was a new type of gasoline? And what if this gasoline suddenly allowed a car to go 70 miles per gallon instead of 26 miles per gallon?

Everyone would want to try this gasoline.

But what if, when people tried it, their cars still got 26 mpg, or even worse, they went down to 24 mpg?

What would people do?

I think I know what they'd do. They'd assume there was something wrong with the variant of the miraculous new gasoline they were getting at their gas station, and they'd try a new gas station to get the proper version of the new gas.

But what if the new gas was not a miracle at all? What if all the talk was wrong and the gas was not only not magic, it was actually no better or even worse than the old-fashioned gas?

I have a feeling that's what's going on in the advertising business.

Clients have been reading and hearing for years about the miracle of online advertising. But the miracle is not paying off for them. From all the idle chit-chat they hear and read, they think it's paying off for everyone but them.

"How come it's not working for us?"

"We need to find a new gas station and get the proper version of this gasoline."

And, just maybe, that's how we wind up with an astonishing $25 billion in media billings currently in review.

What's The Value Of Creativity?

According to reports in the press, at least $25 billion in media spending has gone into review so far this year.

This is a staggeringly large number.

This seems to me to be quantitative evidence of the continued imprudent emphasis that advertisers are putting on the delivery system (media) at the expense of the product (the ads.)

How much added value are you going to get by changing media agencies?  Is one agency going to buy your media 3% more efficiently? Is one agency going to charge you 4% less? Is one agency's media strategy going to be 5% more effective?

I understand that when you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars, a few percent in savings can be significant.

Meanwhile, great creative work can be 100% more effective at selling than mediocre creative work. Or 500%.

Why are we so obsessed with the delivery systems when they offer so little leverage, and so complacent with mediocrity in the product when it offers such a large upside?

The behemoths of the corporatized, consolidated advertising industry have convinced the behemoths of the corporatized, consolidated marketing industry that efficiency is more important than imagination.

This is a dreadful development in the evolution of the advertising business.

It has been creeping up on us for years. But now we have the numbers that leave no doubt about what's going on.