1001 Advertising Tips: Ideas and Strategies from the World’s Greatest Campaigns (2006)
by Luc Dupont
Transcontinental Books, $27.95 (US) $36.95(CAN), 290 pages
Sometimes numbers in titles just sound right: Number 1 with a Bullet; Number 2 and Trying Harder; Lucky 7; Behind the 8-Ball; 57 Varieties; 101 Dalmatians, 1001 whatever. But a thousand and one of anything can be a little bit too much. Getting to the end can be a lot of work and by the time you have reached the last one, you can’t remember the first one. Such is the case with Luc Dupont’s 1001 Advertising Tips: Ideas and Strategies from the World’s Greatest Campaigns.
University of Ottawa professor of communications Luc Dupont has written four books on advertising, and often takes his role as professor of communications & marketing to the field, where he advises groups such as Re/Max, Bell and Sun Media Corp on how to design their advertising to make it more effective. This work is written for someone planning an ad campaign, perhaps a director of sales & marketing at one of Dupont’s premium clients.
Obviously, with the number 1001 in the title, you are going to get lots of info on ads and ad campaigns. Frequently, Dupont makes use of tables and charts from Advertising Age to supplement what he is saying. Many colour or B&W photos also complement his 1001 ideas. However, Dupont is overly long on his marketing suggestions and too short on advertising analysis. Chapter Two is called “55 Ways of Positioning Your Product” and he really has to stretch to get all 55 into his work. Some of his suggestions are the same old idea, just turned upside down.
In fewer than 300 pages, Dupont attempts to make 1001 ideas on advertising glamorous, invigorating and applicable. As a result, he does not go into enough to detail to explain the rationale of why things work in the advertising world. And because the discussion of advertising ideas in this book is so curtailed, Dupont’s tone tends to be too much preaching and not enough teaching. And also unfortunately, there are very few ideas discussed here that are new work; most of these advertising ideas could just as easily be found in books by Advertising gurus such as Al Reis and Jack Trout or others.
Sometimes the fun of advertising is touched upon here by Dupont, but is often done in a better way by practitioners in the advertising world. For example, Michael Newman’s 2003 book, Creative Leaps: 10 Lessons in Effective Advertising Inspired at Saatchi & Saatchi, and Mary Wells Lawrence’s 2002 book A Big Life in Advertising often tell better stories about the world of advertisers. If you are an advertising buff, then this book will make a nice supplement to your library. However, if you are a newcomer to understanding advertising, then 1001 stretches the topic too thin and too far.
I would like to suggest a title that does not contain a number. Maybe Less is More.
Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.