ONE + ONE = THREE

This is an absolutely bloody brilliant book.

I’m tempted to stop this review there, but I promised I’d write 300 words so I won’t.

Amazing from start to finish. It would be tempting just to talk about every anecdote/story in order but that would be as long as it was lazy.

Some incredible advice wedged in between approximately 100 fascinating stories from the pages of history and branding.

“Reinterpreting the brief is the answer” for prevention of seal clubbing.

“Strategy makes advertising right; execution makes it great” from the Levy’s bread campaign in NYC – ain’t that the truth?

General Patton’s take on “elegant profanity” was excellent (he’d have got on with my gran quite well).

I loved the lesson from the inventor of Scrabble that “Discipline isn’t the enemy of creativity. Discipline facilitates creativity” – something our founder, Gordon Bowen is always hammering home to us!

I absolutely loved the lesson from Sony of “Before you sell the answer. Sell the need”. He was doing it fifty year before Steve Jobs.

The Plimsoll line story and the words of Tony Benn hit home too: “When people come along with a good idea, in the beginning it is completely ignored. If they go on about it they are considered mad and possibly even dangerous. Then, when it is eventually recognised as a good idea, nobody can be found who does not claim to have thought of it in the first place”.

This book reminds me a lot of Rory Sutherland’s “WikiMan”  – so much good stuff crammed into it that it’s almost impossible to remember any of it without revisiting it daily for reminders!

I can’t decide if this is a perfect coffee table book or the perfect toilet book, I certainly know it’s the best book I’ve read by anyone in the industry for a good long while.

It’s going to give me anecdote fodder for the rest of my natural life.

Probably even less reasons to invite me to dinner parties.

Join our Book Club. If you're a member of The Marketing Society we'd love you to write a 300-word review for our Clubhouse. Or if you're an author get in touch. We've got lots of members keen to review your book. Contact Michael Piggott to find out more.

Kevin Chesters is Executive Planning Director at mcgarrybowen. Read more from him in our Clubhouse.