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Creative Leaps
Book

Creative Leaps

10 Lessons in Effective Advertising Inspired at Saatchi & Saatchi

Michael Newman
Wiley, 2003
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

This may be one of the best books about creativity, brands and advertising ever written. Author Michael Newman’s long, successful tenure with Saatchi and Saatchi, one of the most innovative ad firms in the world, is itself impressive. He knows how to get attention in a market where attention is a scarce resource. His so-called "ten lessons in effective advertising," really ten ideas about creativity, are unnecessary devices, probably a framework forced on a good book by an unimaginative editor. Read this book instead for the chrestomathy of quotations from literary and artistic innovators and thinkers. Read it for the asides, the tangents, the advertising war stories and the rambles. Read it for the shocking ads that push past the bounds of what anyone would consider acceptable. getAbstract.com recommends you read it for pleasure and for all these reasons; you’ll get a lot more than ten lessons.

Summary

Creativity: No Rules, Just Right

This isn’t a rule book, because rules rule out creativity according to Michael Newman, who joined Saatchi & Saatchi in Australia in 1988, when the Saatchi brothers still led the firm. The brothers left soon after, taking the great British Airways account with them. A battle for clients, credibility and identity ensued. The firm’s Australian branch had to redefine itself. It adopted the mission statement, "To be the best agency in the country, and unquestionably one of the best in the world." The test would be client success and world recognition - goals achieved over and over. Along the way, Newman learned the value of humor, humanity and simplicity.

The first thing to remember about advertising is that people hate it, don’t trust it and can spot it a mile away. Yet brands are the strongest forces in the world today - stronger than any of the venerable institutions of government, religion or tradition. When Ford bought Jaguar, physical assets accounted for less than a fifth of its value. Brands are so powerful that even anti-brand, anti-capitalist, anti-globalism types are defined as a market segment and reached by brands that embody...

About the Author

Michael Newman, executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi from 1996 to 2001, led the agency back to the top and built significant brands including Toyota, Qantas, British Petroleum, Proctor and Gamble and BMW.

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