The Encyclopedia of Advertising (15% Off!)

... by Alan Van Dine, © 2006, Light Verse for a Heavy Universe

Introduction: An Important Book

     
 
Trade Secrets of the Pros!

 
  
 
Little known behind-the-flipchart tactics of mass market persuasion, TV lingo, horizontal pubs, P.O.P., piggyback inserts, SFX, potato prints, double gatefold broadsides, ads that go above the fold and galvanize the reader, matchbook coupons, subliminal erotic appeal, cheap printers, media waste zones, saturation FM radio blitzes, and MORE
  
     
 
Compiled by the
American Institute of Advanced Polemics
in cooperation with the
Wharton School of Bigness
  
 
 
     
  "We are all fish, swimming in a sea of advertising"  
 

- Korzybski (paraphrased)
  
     

Wide of the Mark
 Nowhere are the effects of advertising more evident than in the advertising industry.

Great agencies teeter and die. Big ideas and little boutiques spring up overnight like toadstools, only to be cannibalized by predators of the Jingle Jungle where brand loyalties can be purchased for a song. Uneasy lies the head that wears out and can't produce surefire selling platforms at the drop of a hat in the ring. In the land of the blind, forewarned is forearmed.

To state that this is a competitive business is to understate the problem and miss the opportunity inherent in the abject helplesness of your fumbling competitor who can't kick the ball through the uprights of a measurable goal.
Consider the odds:

The average consumer is exposed to 1,600 advertising messages a day and makes 37 purchasing decisions. Obviously, the other 1,563 advertising messages are daily going unheeded by each of 200 million consumers, which adds up to 312,600,000,000 failed ads a day or 11,409,900,000,000 utterly wasted advertising expenditures per year by clients who - once they realize what is going on - will most certainly fire their agencies. For the advertising practitioner who is prepared to reap this whirlwind, untold riches await. Semper Paratus.
But preparedness is not merely a matter of crouching ready to pounce. Great success requires great advertising, and great ads are made, not born, though to be sure they are often kidnapped.

So -- back to the fundamentals. Knowing the basics will not make you another Chester Bowles any more than solid ground can build a skyscraper. But without solid ground, you are running the race with your foot in a bucket.
So let's begin at the starting blocks and lay the foundations.
 
 

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