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One of my Planning and Strategy colleagues recently asked me to share the resources I would want our junior Planners to use in order to understand our wonderful discipline and becomes better strategists. However, as I was going through the list - I realised that this list would be useful for anyone in the marketing game in order to become more strategic.
So here is my list for things to absorb to do this job well, and reasons why:
Brand:
- BOOK: Eating The Big Fish – Adam Morgan. This is the greatest guide to building a challenger brand out there. Fact. It also comes with some brilliant and inspiring case studies.
Advertising:
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BOOK: The Advertising Effect – Adam Ferrier & Jennifer Fleming. A very engaging book on how to make advertising work. It also highlights a key concept within advertising that can get overlooked - we aren't producing art, we need to produce communications that actually work!
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Podcast: IPA AdTalk. Informal conversations with industry leaders and thinkers - this is a really nice and easy way to keep ones finger on the pulse of our industry.
· BOOK: A Practical Pocket Guide to Account Planning – Chris Kocek. http://www.practicalplanningbook.com/
o Quick and easy read that explains all the general things we do with some useful models.
Pharma:
· Podcast: Pharmaceutical Industry: Past, Present and Future. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/itunes-u/pharmaceutical-industry-past/id381702343?mt=10
For the basics on how Pharma industry came to be, this is a really excellent mini-lecture series from Oxford University.
Bang on trend:
· Email Subscription: Campaign.
· Email Subscription: Strands of Genius. http://geniussteals.co/subscribe/
o Collection of interesting and diverse things from within and outside marketing.
Technical Skills:
· Behavioural Science.
o Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman. This is the ultimate guide to Behavioural Science. Not for the faint hearted as it is dense and not an easy read.
o Book: The Undoing Project – Michael Lewis. The origin of behavioural science. Told as a very engaging story, and gets you to understand Behavioural Science. Good enough to open your eyes to the discipline.
· Selling Skills (as we all need to sell to collagues and clients)
o Book: To Sell Is Human: The Surprising truth about persuading, convincing and influencing others. I read this book once a year. Very well written. Practical and engaging.
· Data Visualisation
o Book & TEDTalk – Knowledge is Beautiful – David McCandles. We often need to display data in engaging ways. Our creatives cannot read data as well as we can, so it is our job to get the data to tell a story. This book is full of inspiring data stories.
Staying Inspired’:
· Podcast: Freakanomics Radio & TED Radio Hour. Lovely shows on different topics about why people behave like they do.
· Podcast: No Such Thing As A Fish. Done by the QI Elves it is a funny 45 minutes weekly on their favourite facts. But I can’t tell you how many times I have used these facts with clients!
· Podcast: Invisibilia. Absolutely brilliant podcast on the world around us that we do not see, and how it effects behaviour. Really outstanding.