Then We Set His Hair on Fire: Insights and Accidents from a Hall-of-Fame Career in Advertising

In Dusenberry's practical if sometimes self-congratulatory memoir-cum-handbook, he asserts, "A good idea can inspire a great commercial. But a good insight can fuel a thousand ideas, a thousand commercials." The book is as thick as Campbell's Chunky Soup with instructive anecdotes from his long and storied career as former chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO North America. With illustrations from BBDO accounts including GE, Federal Express, Gillette, HBO and Pizza Hut, Dusenberry stresses the importance of strategic insight for distinguishing your brand and cutting through the proverbial clutter. GE's tag line, "We bring good things to life," which endured from 1979 to 2003, was built on the corporate giant's pervasiveness, for example. Dusenberry addresses the challenges of branding in today's "parity economy," doing research, creating ads that actually "sell more stuff," launching a brand, distilling what it stands for as the starting point for generating insights, and building a superior creative team. Throughout, he strikes an authoritative but conversational tone as he offers behind-the-scenes observations (e.g., on the infamous Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial). Dusenberry's theses are hardly earth-shattering, but his firsthand take on some major campaigns of the past few decades make the book worth a browse for aspiring marketers. (Sept.)