Din and tinsel

Din and Tinsel, or Advertising as Showmanship – an exclusive extract from the new audiobook of The Anatomy of Humbug, read by the author, Paul Feldwick.

You may have seen The Greatest Showman, but the real Phineas T. Barnum was a lot more interesting – and a source of inspiration to marketers who aspire to bravery.

In The Anatomy of Humbug, Paul Feldwick examines various ways people have thought about how advertising works – by transmitting a rational message, by implanting subconscious associations, or simply by making brands more famous. In this concluding chapter, he considers that, after all, advertising might usefully be thought of as a kind of showmanship - or as Barnum liked to call it, humbug.

Listen to the extract below.