This book chronicles the dawn of the age of creativity in business, when new ideas and practices based on creativity will drastically change the way we do business. Starting with an overview of the age of marketing, the book winds its way through the past and the present to show us the future of business, backed up with insights from sociology and psychology.
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Adam Morgan vii
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: Bananas at Dawn 1
The ‘added-value’ banana 1
What’s it all about, Alfie? 3
Marketing hilarity 4
Resistance is futile 7
The death of marketing as an organizational principle 8
The War for Talent and how to win it 9
The Creative Age as a new organizing principle 9
Too ambitious by half? 10
Talking to the preacher man 11
How to use this book 12
Structure 12
Creative Age heroes 13
And dear reader … 14
1: Creativity Is Our Inheritance 15
The value of creativity 18
The man who knew too much 19
Creativity sees what isn’t (yet) 20
Creativity is our greatest inheritance 21
Creativity in the public services 22
But I’m not very creative … 23
The creative individual 25
The creative personality 27
What are we to make of the ‘facts’ of creativity? 29
Memories of the future 29
Team creativity = creativity to the power of N 30
Working together creatively 31
Leaving your agenda at the door 32
Diversity rules 33
Impro madness 34
Be kind to your fellow creators 35
Enjoy the journey, not the destination 35
Conclusions 37
Some questions 37
2: The Glorious Revolution 39
Looking forward and looking back 41
Change is a snowball made by many hands 42
Like frogs in a pot of water 43
The problem of history 44
The fertile ground 45
The Marketing Revolution and the doughboy 47
Something to believe in 48
Changing the world 49
The rise and rise of the brand 51
The final frontier? 55
What had happened? 55
Conclusions 56
Some questions 56
3: Tsunami 57
You’ve never had it so good 59
Tides of change 60
R-E-S-P-E-C-T 68
DIY careers 72
The importance of people 75
Tsunami and after 75
Some questions 76
4: Who and How We Are 77
It’s over 79
I am not who you think I am 80
The brain in action 83
Engaging the disengaged mind 84
Emotions and decisions 85
Humans as herd animals 87
The end of the individual? 92
Conclusions 93
Some questions 94
5: Ideas, Ideas, Ideas 95
Ideas and attention dollars 98
Home is here 101
This is the sound of the suburbs 102
‘Don’t be so English’ 104
Ideas and B2B 105
Ideas and microchips 107
Key characteristics of the Creative Age Idea 109
Conclusions 112
Some questions 113
6: All that You Can’t Leave Behind (but must) 115
Learning to let go 117
Tea with Andrew Ehrenberg 120
Asking silly questions 122
Shaky foundations and empty promises 123
More shaky foundations 125
Opinions aren’t much use 127
So where does this leave market research? 128
The brand and the snake-oil salesmen 129
Problem 1: brand gets in the way of the real problems 130
Problem 2: the claims made for the importance of the brand are overblown 133
Problem 3: the brand ties you to the past 134
Conclusions 134
Using the ‘bnard’ 135
Some questions 135
7: How to Have a Creative Age Idea 137
Not the idiot’s guide to ... 139
Concept 1: purpose, not positioning 140
Concept 2: interventions – it is what you do 144
Applying these concepts – what to do? 144
Conclusions 151
Some questions 152
8: Interventions – It is What You Do … 153
Catalytic conversions 155
Ideas and interventions 156
Control is an (un)helpful illusion 157
The science of complexity 159
What this means for business 161
More modesty, please 162
Interventions as the expression of the purpose-idea 164
Benchmarking your way into a corner 165
Interventions as instinctive actions 167
Management interventions 169
The intranet fallacy 170
Conclusion 171
Some questions 171
9: Advertising is Not Communication 173
The big question 175
Advertising as communication 177
What’s wrong with the communication model? 180
Advertising and politics 181
No market for messages 182
Other effects of advertising explained 184
Implications for advertising 185
Advertising a promotion can be an intervention 186
What advertising can learn from PR 188
The only good ad is an intervention 189
The end of specialisms 190
Conclusions 193
Some questions 193
10: The Shared Enterprise – Putting purpose ideas at the Heart of Business 195
Changing the world 197
Pornography for the Creative Age employee 199
What this costs business 200
A sense of purpose at the heart of the company 203
(not to be confused with) Mission statement mania 207
Purpose-ideas and humans as herd animals 208
Back in the Apple hot seat again 209
Purpose-ideas and self-alignment 210
Conclusions 211
Some questions 212
11: A Place You Want to Work in 213
A purpose-idea is not enough 215
Something for everyone 216
Fulfilment and flow 218
Flow and the workplace 220
It is what we do 223
Enter the accelerator manager 224
Thinking-by-doing 227
A new model 228
Why don’t we ‘do the do’ more often? 229
Choose your weapon to avoid the doing 230
Who needs complete control? 231
Conclusions 232
Some questions 232
12: Us – Together 233
Architecture as intervention 235
So what is a company? 236
The company anthill 238
Basic programming in the machine company 239
And in the Creative Age company? 240
The value of networks 241
Making this useful 245
I’m special, me 246
Mr Blandings and his dream house 247
Advertising’s 80:20 rule 248
What are we to do with the ad agency? 252
The new 80:20 rule 253
The network company 254
Our house 255
Opening up our house 255
Mutuality 256
Ideas, ideas, ideas (again) 256
Conclusions 257
Some questions 257
Postscript 258
All changed utterly 258
The most powerful force on the planet 259
A fresh start 259
Endnotes 261
Index 272
About the Author :
MARK EARLS is Executive Group Planning Director at Ogilvy London - the UK's largest communications group. Prior to this, he worked at St. Luke's and a number of other London Ad agencies.
Mark is a frequent public speaker and has presented papers on his field of expertise around the world and judged a number of awards competitions. He edited the 1999 APG Creative Planning Awards case studies. He has been vice chair of the UK Account Planning Group and sat on the DTI Foresight Panel for Information, Technology and Communication.
Andrew Jaffe, chair of the US Clio Awards described to Mark as 'one of the London Advertising scene's foremost contrarians'.
Mark lives in North London but dreams of tight lines, off-drives and sunnier climes.
Review :
"... Using ingeniously insightful witty examples, mark Earls embarks on a radical and comprehensive critique of the fundamental principles of business and marketing..." (Marketing Business, September 2002) "…a highly entertaining and thought-provoking denunciation of what’s gone wrong with marketing…Mark’s easy-flowing writing style will encourage you to try to spend the evening reading it at one sitting…" (www.theidm.com 4 November 2002)
"…anyone interested in our industry (marketing), and the society we help to create, should read this book…" (Research Magazine, February 2003)
