This post was inspired by the comments from a reader who wrote:
I
was a bit surprised when I read Jonah Bloom’s column in Advertising Age
about the ‘Top 10 Media and Marketing Books of All Time’ (http://adage.com/bookstore/post?article_id=134945)
because I thought there was a glaring absence of any digitally-focused books.
Though I agree that #1 ranked Positioning is a classic, and that they were
looking for ‘all time’ rankings, I was surprised to see ‘Ogilvy on Advertising’
(I’ve read it) and not ‘Groundswell’ or maybe something by Seth Godin or
‘Cluetrain Manifesto’. I was also surprised to see so many ‘older’ publications
on the list.
I
realize that digital is still less than 10% of US ad spend and that network TV
is still king, but (1) it’s growing, and (2) it’s influencing other categories. Do
you agree with me that the list skews towards older readers?
He raised an interesting point, and I haven’t read all of the books on the top 10 list (not quite half of them, for that matter), so I can’t critique the list itself, but I also couldn’t come up with any examples of anything with a digital focus that should be there. Groundswell is an important book, but it’s too tactical to likely endure as a great one. Andy Sernovitz’s Word of Mouth marketing and Rohit Bhargava’s Personality Not Included might fall into the same group. One I’m reading now, Emanuel Rosen’s The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited, could be a contender, even if the digital angle is just a part of it – albeit a big reason the original book needed to be revisited in the first place.
So, are there any great books on online advertising or digital marketing?
Have they just not been written yet?
Or are the best books on marketing and advertising inherently bigger than any one channel or medium, enough so that they apply to a broad range of marketing?
Please share your thoughts in the comments.
People reacted to this story.
Show comments Hide commentsI’m with your reader – Cluetrain was a huge eye-opener. Mind-blowing that it came out 10 years ago. Course, any group that ranks Trout & Reis as #1 is not going to be favourable to the “unmarketing” stance of Cluetrain. If memory serves, there’s actually a passage in Cluetrain that rips Positioning pretty strongly.