WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?

by George Lois

Shows marketing and advertising professionals how to defy rules by developing outrageous ideas that will sell products

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Paul Whitla]

Primarily a book of anecdotes from one of America’s advertising scions. Lois is from the ‘big idea’ school of advertising, not so much eschewing research and positioning, but at least suggesting these must take a back seat to good creative ideas.

Most of the book revolves around Lois’s telling of how he developed campaigns that worked and came up with big ideas for the advertising. The book is assisted by illustrations of the advertising he is talking about and it is certainly interesting to see what went into the campaigns and how the individual ads were created.

There really isnt much in the way of ‘how to’ however. Reading the book is a little like visting with an adman and listening to some very interesting stories but not really coming away with any clearer idea of how campaigns are created and where the ideas come from. The most interesting parts of the book are the sections where he bemoans the conglomeratisation of the industry and the groupthink and procedures that the established agencies have developed.

Certain sections may be worth re-reading at some stage. He deals for example with the topics of sex and humour in advertising, the use of celebrities and political advertising.

[Josh Clement]

Walks the walk, tawks the tawk.
If you’re a diehard fan of Lois like me, you’ll get a kick out of the case studies. But you’ll need to wade through a lot of name dropping, bad puns and bragging.

[Max Oliveira]

A book with great ideas troubled by a great ego.