Bang!

Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World

By: Linda Kaplan Thayer, Robin Koval

Narrated by: Deborah Marlowe

Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

The founders of one of today's hottest, most innovative advertising agencies explain how to ignite the kind of marketing explosions that will capture customers' attention.

Linda Kaplan Thaler, the CEO and Chief Creative Officer of the Kaplan Thaler Group, is the brains behind a host of memorable and highly successful ads, from the irresistibly sentimental "Kodak moment" campaign to Herbal Essences' "totally organic experience" to, most recently, the irrepressible AFLAC duck.

In Bang!, Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval of the Kaplan Thaler Group, currently ranked as the fastest-growing ad agency in the country, offer the kind of out-of-the-box thinking and proven strategies that marketers anywhere can use to create loud, clear, attention-grabbing messages about their products and services.

Presenting an arsenal of "big bang" ideas, the authors discuss how to create a memorable publicity hook and how to design attention-grabbing packaging that taps into consumers' innermost desires. They interweave entertaining accounts of their successes and failures, as well as those of other companies to suggest specific ways to establish an atmosphere conducive to innovative breakthroughs - why having "enough" time to work on a project can be a disadvantage, and why having a small staff in a cramped space is often the best way to come up with big ideas.

Full of colorful anecdotes and inspiring accounts of campaigns that have catapulted revenues and increased market shares, Bang! shows how to create a marketing campaign that rises above the banal barrage of commercials to create a genuine marketing explosion.

©2003 Linda Kaplan Thayer and Robin Koval (P)2003 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Although the author's advice is targeted primarily toward businesses and other publicists, the glitzy anecdotal writing is witty and informative enough to appeal to those interested in advertising and popular culture." (Publishers Weekly)
"If Al Gore had had this book in 2000, George W. Bush wouldn't be sitting in the White House." (James Carville, author and Democratic strategist)
"Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval 'get it' from every angle. This [audio] book is full of extraordinary insight on effective message delivery." (Gordon Bethune, Chairman and CEO, Continental Airlines)

Great Listening

It's truly unfortunate that there is such disparity in the other reviews of this book. This is an interesting book that gives solid insight about where advertising is headed for the forseeable future. There are probably many other books out there that do exactly the same thing this book does that offer similar critical analysis of the advertising principles that helped these ideas succeed. Regardless, the facts stand for themselves: the authors are succeeding both in getting the message of their clients across and in making money for themselves. Both are admirable achievements.

Unlike other marketing books...

"Bang!" delivers true to its title. Fast paced clear concepts with examples, ideas and how they were inspired and achieved. This is a good one to feed into the hopper!

Awesome

This is a fantastic book. Full of usefull ideas on how to...well...get ideas. Fascinating. A MUST READ !!

Excellent

I used some of Linda Kaplan`s techniques in my business and they are phenomenal. A Great Book!

A Brilliant Work of Marketing Inspiration

Wow! This is an incredible piece of writing and an interesting insight into the the creative process of this particular agency. Mrs. Thayer is brutally honest in her warts-and-all presentation of even her own past mistakes when illustrating her points. This honesty only adds to the credibility of her advices and the tales of her and her agency's many successes.

Only two things struck me, hence the four stars rather than five.

At one point she attributes the creation of the VCR to the wrong company. This sounds minor, but when so much of the book is anecdotal, it made the facts of the stories from outside her direct participation slightly suspect to me for a little while. But listening on, I heard no other error of this type.

The second is her assumption of resources and NYC tunnel vision. She asserts in her book that for less than a million it's impossible to do much more than print posters and refers to her company's humble beginning as being "a little ten million dollar shop." Ten million maybe little for the New York market, but for advertising agencies outside that specific region it's anything but. A great deal of great work gets done outside NYC, Chicago, Boston and LA, and for far less than a million.

But all that said, this book is still outstanding, inspirational and a fun listen.

Exciting

I found the book most entertaining and a great source of fun to talk about to my patients. Most have no idea of the behind the scenes of
a commercial, just as I had no concept of the process. People love to hear about things they know about ie commercials but don't really. Anyway, I enjoyed it and would suggest it to anyone with an entreprenurial personality.

Inspiring and Creative

Great source for learning creativity and understanding how to connect the dots. My ad clients are seeing a new me...

A fun read, but not all ideas will work

I found this book very enjoyable, and it contained several insights I found very topical to most every business situation. However, a good portion of the book provides anecdotes and insights that are specific only to advertising and other 'strictly creative' ventures.

For example, there is a great description of how to foster an environment that fosters the open sharing and nurturing of ideas in an organization. Yet other examples about fostering creativity by 'waiting till the last minute' don't come across as a viable 'best practice' for most firms.

All in all, this was a very entertaining book, with a behind the scenes view of many advertising campaigns you'll be familiar with (The Toys'R Us song, Kodak Moments, etc). Just don't expect this to redefine your organization (unless you're an ad agency).

You don't want to skip this book!

This book is jammed with highly relevant, immediately useable techniques and tools. If you are in the business of engaging clients in conversation for the purpose of unlocking, creating and delivering highly valued results... then listen to this book.


We'll read. Excellently written.

Incredible, narrator is awesome!

This book is one of the best I have ever encountered! I am a Brand Manager for a very large food and beverage company and I discovered at least 10 pieces of powerful advice in this book. Plus the narrator is simply the best I have ever heard. She makes the stories come alive and the book flies by so quickly because of her skills, I listen over and over again. I am so thankful for this book. It has improved my skills and creativity tenfold!