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An acronym you may not have come across which was used recently in a presentation by Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP product management and marketing at Google ...
Avoid HiPPOs: A hippo kills more people than any other animal. In business, hippos kill more products & ideas than anyone, A hippo is the highest paid person’s opinion. Hippos say “I think…”
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Randall Rothenberg: Where the Suckers Moon: The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign
Rothenberg is a long time NYT journalist who went on to be editor of Ad Age and is now president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Where the Suckers Moon is an implausibly detailed account of the pitch and subsequent development of an ad campaign for Subaru USA. The book ends with Wieden's Subaru ads being voted dead last by consumers on Superbowl Sunday in 1993. It's quite a ride. (*****)
Joshua Ferris: Then We Came to the End
The rythyms of life in a Chicago ad agency during a recession. The writing is a bit too staccato for my liking and the characters are all long gone before you can get to know them. Nonetheless, it is about as close to home as you can get. (***)
Nick Davies: Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media
Davies finds his colleagues in the media guilty of systematically recycling press releases and news agency output without checking the facts or seeking to find the truth. Shame he doesn't even attempt to seek a solution. (****)
Sam Delaney: Get Smashed!: The Story of the Men Who Made the Adverts That Changed Our Lives
Enjoyable romp through the history of (mostly British) advertising containing some (possibly apocryphal) tales from those that lived through it. (*****)
Mark Tungate: Adland: A Global History of Advertising
Tungate manages to make the history of advertising boring. Quite an achievement. (**)
Robert Johansen: Get There Early
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Joe Moran: Queuing for Beginners: The Story of Daily Life from Breakfast to Bedtime
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Oona Strathern: A Brief History of the Future; How Visionary Thinkers Changed the World and Tomorrow's Trends Are 'Made' and Marketed
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Jim Taylor & Steve Hatch: Rigorous Magic: Communication Ideas and Their Application
A valiant but ultimately flawed attempt to codify and assess the value of different types of communications ideas. The typology they have created is useful but they fall down when it comes to providing workable definitions (e.g. between an 'emotional platform' and a 'brand idea'). Furthermore, being media men they are predictably in thrall of those kinds of ideas that media agencies can control ('activation' and 'symbiotic' ideas), less enthusiastic about 'brand' ideas and brazenly critical of the value of 'advertising' ideas. (**)
Stuart Maconie: Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North
Imagine if Pevsner was written by Nick Hornby. Maconie fights his demons about living in the South of England by going back home to the North. Supposendly a travel book, this is Maconie's humorous and informative take on the North-South divide. (***)
Mark Earls: Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature
Mark Earls, the professional contrarian and erstwhile Head of Planning at Ogilvy London has developed his ideas about herd thinking into a book for all to see. (****)
Dick Taverne: The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy, and the New Fundamentalism
If you like Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column in The Guardian then you will enjoy this. I don't agree with all of it but then that's part of the point. (***)
Andrew Marr: My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism
Andrew Marr writes his autobiography under the guise of authoring an insider perspective on the world of news journalism. Fascinating and written with a light touch. Not as ambitious as it might have been but riveting nonetheless. (****)
David Freud: Freud in the City
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John Grant: The Brand Innovation Manifesto - How to Build Brands, Redefine Markets and Defy Conventions
John offers up 32 categories of brand idea -- great stimulation for adding new layers of understanding to your brand (****)
Being an occasional HiPPO, does anyone have suggestions on how to maintain freshness & creativity and the spread of good ideas without accidentally killing innovation?
In my organization, we do our best to open the dialog to any and all that are interested in contributing and use brainstorming (atleast the early phases of brainstorming) as a way to share ideas rather than evaluate the capability or validity of those ideas.
Posted by: Christian Jurinka | March 28, 2008 at 07:24 PM
Perhaps ...
1) Make sure you completely understand the idea before you comment
2) Think carefully before you speak -- maybe even take some time to formulate a proper response rather than giving immediate feedback
3) You are not the consumer
4) The past is not the future
5) Be honest with each other and yourself -- ask yourself what expertise you bring to the decision and try to stay within the bounds of your expertise
6) Share what is good about the idea first before you criticise (perhaps you can keep some of it alive)
7) Explain very clearly why you don't like something and try to substantiate your POV
8) Let the idea originator respond and encourage them to defend the idea if they think it has merit
9) Don't Bogart the feedback
10) Police your team
Posted by: Lee | March 30, 2008 at 09:31 PM