![Welcome to the Creative Age](/summary-img/2469-HHRU2ILS.jpg?h=M&b=0)
Recommendation
Just when you thought you had this marketing thing down, Mark Earls says it won’t do you any good now. Marketing is out of sync with today’s consumer-centric world of empowered customers and excess supply. In witty prose, Earls contends that creativity is more than catchy words, and he has plenty to say about the brand-as-experience phenomenon and about freeing yourself from convention. His sensible premise comes across as simplistic and naïve. Saying that ideas are the key to success is a bit like saying that love conquers all - a noble sentiment, but vague and not really new. However, this doesn’t pretend to be a how-to book; it’s an idea book, and you interpret the ideas. An ad veteran, Earls provides ample examples and expert quotes on attitudes and behaviors. And if it isn’t news that the market changes constantly, getAbstract.com notes, it isn’t fully understood either. If you want to understand, welcome to Earls’ world.
Summary
About the Author
Mark Earls is executive group planning director at Ogilvy London, the U.K.’s largest communications group. He worked at St. Luke’s and other London ad agencies. Earls edited the 1999 APG Creative Planning Awards case studies. He has been vice chair of the U.K. Account Planning Group and sat on the DTI Foresight Panel. Andrew Jaffe, chair of the U.S. Clio Awards, described Earls as "one of the London Advertising scene’s foremost contrarians."
Comment on this summary