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The Advertising Effect
Want to know how to influence other people's behaviour? In The Advertising Effect, respected advertising insider, Adam Ferrier, reveals the ten techniques used by some of the best-known brands across the globe. These techniques are grounded in psychological theory with award winning real world examples and explore how the most effective way to change behaviour is through action rather than the conventional advertising practices (emotional or rational persuasion). This is the ultimate insider's guide, to the ultimate behaviour change industry - advertising. Expose the techniques that advertisers use to get consumers to buy. Examples and case studies illustrate successful strategies and includes award winning campaigns such as Rename Speed, Steal Banksy and Share a Coke. Includes insights from some notable people in advertising, philosophy and behavior change including Alain De Botton, Andrew Denton, David Nobay, Faris Yakob and Bob Garfield.
240 pages, Paperback
First published May 28, 2014
41 people are currently reading
645 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
December 31, 2015
Really wished that I read this book instead of listening to it. Love how he combines his knowledge of psych and advertising in this book; Lots of good takeaways (I wish I could recount them but I'm really more of a visual learner) and cool modern-day case studies. Reminds me of Influence by Robert Caldini (a book he mentions a couple of times). Love that he encourages using advertising for good social change.
December 31, 2017
After Eugene Schwartz's "Breakthrough Advertising" it's hard to find another marketing book that can hold it's weight. I would say this one definitely does! The author does a great job of translating a lot of neuroscience and psychology literature into frameworks that can be applied immediately to your business. Each chapter also has a nice summary that recaps key learning points. Definitely a must buy for any marketer.
April 23, 2021
Adam Ferrier’s style of defining what a consumer behavior is and then moving on to explain the action spurs to influence them is really interesting for anyone to understand how big companies drive their sales through effective marketing. The best thing about “Advertising Effect” is that it takes a unique psychological approach of applying advertising techniques on consumers’ behavior. Although advertising is always about consumers’ behavior, this book talks about how behavior is actually changed by applying the neural science.
Ferrier explains ten different techniques, each grounded in human psychology theories, which can be applied to change the behavior towards a product’s consumption. Before reading this book, I knew a little about the classical affective conditioning technique in which the advertisers pair something that consumers have an innate good reaction to spur an unconditioned stimulus. For instance, as the author explained, pairing a beer with a good-looking girl in a beer ad. But after reading this book, it added a lot to my information about how many different marketing strategies are there which are changing our behaviors but we seldom know. He explained these strategies as the utility strategy, modelling, reframing, evocation, ownership, collectivism, play strategy, skill-up strategy, eliminate-complexity strategy, and the commitment strategy. The interesting thing about learning all these strategies is that I am not only intrigued to apply them as a marketing strategist to boost my business in future, but also to get awareness about the kind of advertising information I consume daily as a customer.
Another interesting point for me was that since having a background in psychology, the author used his logical organizational skills in the writing pretty well to improve our cognitive learning throughout the book. Putting the behavioral drivers in two categories: motivation and ease, he explained the strategies by categorizing them under the two drivers. The chunking of all the strategies was such that you can read it in a flow without getting overwhelmed by the amount of information.
Overall, the best thing about “Advertising Effect” is that it is consistent with the conventional marketing theories. It is a good read for marketers to plot marketing campaigns for today’s digital branding era to initiate the required action spurs. The book is focused on B2C cases and this implies that as a marketer, the information can be applied on the brand’s image as well as consumers. For instance, by using these strategies, marketers will tend to make the product more progressive and innovative, while also influencing and satisfying the consumers’ behavior. Hence, the information is great for not only improving the relevancy of a brand, but also for increasing the behavioral propensity of consumers.
Ferrier explains ten different techniques, each grounded in human psychology theories, which can be applied to change the behavior towards a product’s consumption. Before reading this book, I knew a little about the classical affective conditioning technique in which the advertisers pair something that consumers have an innate good reaction to spur an unconditioned stimulus. For instance, as the author explained, pairing a beer with a good-looking girl in a beer ad. But after reading this book, it added a lot to my information about how many different marketing strategies are there which are changing our behaviors but we seldom know. He explained these strategies as the utility strategy, modelling, reframing, evocation, ownership, collectivism, play strategy, skill-up strategy, eliminate-complexity strategy, and the commitment strategy. The interesting thing about learning all these strategies is that I am not only intrigued to apply them as a marketing strategist to boost my business in future, but also to get awareness about the kind of advertising information I consume daily as a customer.
Another interesting point for me was that since having a background in psychology, the author used his logical organizational skills in the writing pretty well to improve our cognitive learning throughout the book. Putting the behavioral drivers in two categories: motivation and ease, he explained the strategies by categorizing them under the two drivers. The chunking of all the strategies was such that you can read it in a flow without getting overwhelmed by the amount of information.
Overall, the best thing about “Advertising Effect” is that it is consistent with the conventional marketing theories. It is a good read for marketers to plot marketing campaigns for today’s digital branding era to initiate the required action spurs. The book is focused on B2C cases and this implies that as a marketer, the information can be applied on the brand’s image as well as consumers. For instance, by using these strategies, marketers will tend to make the product more progressive and innovative, while also influencing and satisfying the consumers’ behavior. Hence, the information is great for not only improving the relevancy of a brand, but also for increasing the behavioral propensity of consumers.
December 21, 2021
Really enjoyed reading this book. I had strong opinions about advertising and marketing, I have stated that I make my own choices I don't need someone to tell me what to do. But after finishing reading this book, I now have a completely different opinion. Now I understand better advertising and marketing.
The main objective of the book is to know how you can change behaviors, as the advertising business is all about changing behaviors. The author presented a framework and ten techniques “Spurs” to change behaviors. He also shared steps on how to change a behavior, using his long experience in advertising and psychology. The author shared many interesting insights on changing behavior, human psychology, and all about the advertising business.
I loved how the book provided a framework to change behaviors, steps, and 10 techniques. So, if you're looking to change behavior you will have a whole picture of how to do that. Another thing that I liked about the book is the many stories and examples the author provides from his experience working in his marketing agency. He presented real-life challenges he faced, and how he overcome these challenges using each technique or “Action Spurs”. Another thing I liked about the book is that the language the author used in the book is simple and interactive, you will find yourself laughing while reading through the book because the other loves to use jokes. Also, the author asked many questions during explaining techniques and concepts, he will often give you options so you can pause and think before answering, and for 355 pages book, I think interactive writing and humor made it much reading the book an easier and more enjoyable process. Finally, the author used his background in psychology to explain how to change behavior which I believed added a lot of value to the book.
However, I felt the book was way too long, after finishing reading chapter four, the reader will find the book less valuable as they continue to read. In addition, the author focused more on motivation action spurs providing seven of them, while Ease action spurs were only three. Moreover, the book lacked originality, almost all of the concepts are from other books and other research studies. The author just combined these concepts and studies along with his experience to present a framework.
The main objective of the book is to know how you can change behaviors, as the advertising business is all about changing behaviors. The author presented a framework and ten techniques “Spurs” to change behaviors. He also shared steps on how to change a behavior, using his long experience in advertising and psychology. The author shared many interesting insights on changing behavior, human psychology, and all about the advertising business.
I loved how the book provided a framework to change behaviors, steps, and 10 techniques. So, if you're looking to change behavior you will have a whole picture of how to do that. Another thing that I liked about the book is the many stories and examples the author provides from his experience working in his marketing agency. He presented real-life challenges he faced, and how he overcome these challenges using each technique or “Action Spurs”. Another thing I liked about the book is that the language the author used in the book is simple and interactive, you will find yourself laughing while reading through the book because the other loves to use jokes. Also, the author asked many questions during explaining techniques and concepts, he will often give you options so you can pause and think before answering, and for 355 pages book, I think interactive writing and humor made it much reading the book an easier and more enjoyable process. Finally, the author used his background in psychology to explain how to change behavior which I believed added a lot of value to the book.
However, I felt the book was way too long, after finishing reading chapter four, the reader will find the book less valuable as they continue to read. In addition, the author focused more on motivation action spurs providing seven of them, while Ease action spurs were only three. Moreover, the book lacked originality, almost all of the concepts are from other books and other research studies. The author just combined these concepts and studies along with his experience to present a framework.
January 19, 2022
I picked this up after seeing it on the 'recommended reading' list from the IPA, and I'm glad I did. The Advertising Effect provides practical guidance and useful inspiration that you can take away, and apply in your work immediately; heck, it took me twice as long to read this book because I kept putting it down every five minutes to type out notes on my phone.
Practical take-aways aside, I loved that Adam shares campaign examples that embody some of the ideas in the book, that didn't necessarily turn out as well as he'd hoped. I only mention this because so many books on marketing harp on about amazingly successful campaigns (which are the exception) while ignoring those that do 'okay'. The result? Adam's examples showcase the fact that, by merely existing, advertising works - whether or not it wins awards.
Finally, if you're a book hoarder, you'll love this.
Every chapter comes with a list of links and book references that'll multiply your Amazon wishlist ten-fold. I regret nothing.
If you practice the craft of Marketing and/or advertising - this is a great read, go buy it.
Practical take-aways aside, I loved that Adam shares campaign examples that embody some of the ideas in the book, that didn't necessarily turn out as well as he'd hoped. I only mention this because so many books on marketing harp on about amazingly successful campaigns (which are the exception) while ignoring those that do 'okay'. The result? Adam's examples showcase the fact that, by merely existing, advertising works - whether or not it wins awards.
Finally, if you're a book hoarder, you'll love this.
Every chapter comes with a list of links and book references that'll multiply your Amazon wishlist ten-fold. I regret nothing.
If you practice the craft of Marketing and/or advertising - this is a great read, go buy it.
November 10, 2022
The Advertising Affect book concept is to explain the importance of influencing behavior through motivation and ease action spurs. The structure of the book was clear and consistent, and the language used in the book was easy, clear, and fun which made reading the book enjoyable. In addition, the author shared frameworks and techniques used to influence behavior that is helpful and clear to understand, where each technique took a chapter to explain it in depth with many examples, case studies, and the author's own experiences. I found it extremely valuable that the author combined his psychological knowledge and advertising experiences together since they are truly correlated and dependent on each other.
However, the author provided seven techniques to boost motivation, but only three techniques to make a behavior easier to do. It will be great if more techniques were provided about ease of action spurs. I wished I had seen current, and brand-new cases that had never been discussed before since the cover of the book say “100% fresh ideas”.
However, the author provided seven techniques to boost motivation, but only three techniques to make a behavior easier to do. It will be great if more techniques were provided about ease of action spurs. I wished I had seen current, and brand-new cases that had never been discussed before since the cover of the book say “100% fresh ideas”.
December 2, 2022
I enjoyed reading the book and highly recommended to read. I liked how the author mixed marketing techniques with a psychology background. It shows how advertising ideas can influence and change people's behavior using ten psychological principles. The person should be motivated to adopt the behavior and be easy to do to positively influence the person's behavior. I liked how he links real-life case studies, stories, and successful campaigns to effective advertising techniques that provide marketing insights. The author illustrates seven techniques to encourage motivation and three to ease behavior change. He explains the 'Play' technique in advertising, where a game is created to solve a real-case problem. As a result, many ideas were implemented. For instance, in partnership with the World Bank Institute, a game was created where online players were asked to solve several hypothetical challenges in Africa. So, the player's mission is to upload videos, blogs, and photos for each task, and they encourage others to participate in the game.
April 18, 2021
Interesting book with interesting ideias. Well positioned information and baked up with credible studies and researches. But.... really disappointed in the end, page 218, when the author says “we still struggle to make the world a better place” .. it actually killed a lot of good thoughts I had gained. I even didn’t wanted to give 4 stars but can’t forget the overall. Adam, if you by any chance read this, please read the book FACTFULNESS by Sir Hans Rosling. Remember, that an analyze of such statement must to be made in perspective and not small, not well measured, group of properties. It is all about perspective.
April 23, 2021
To me, Ferrier comes across as guilty of manipulation but determined to justify it.
I feel like advertising is in the adolescent stages of sort of awakening to behavioral psychology. Ferrier understands this much better than most, but in my opinion he fails in many examples throughout the book to inspire us to use it for good (despite his plea, which I appreciated, in the last chapter). Instead he retroactively applies various biases and heuristics to the sorts of ads and propaganda creatives have been making since Edward Bernays.
I felt much more educated reading many of the sources he quotes, like “Thinking Fast and Slow” and “Nudge”. Not much new here.
I feel like advertising is in the adolescent stages of sort of awakening to behavioral psychology. Ferrier understands this much better than most, but in my opinion he fails in many examples throughout the book to inspire us to use it for good (despite his plea, which I appreciated, in the last chapter). Instead he retroactively applies various biases and heuristics to the sorts of ads and propaganda creatives have been making since Edward Bernays.
I felt much more educated reading many of the sources he quotes, like “Thinking Fast and Slow” and “Nudge”. Not much new here.
December 15, 2021
This is an insightful book providing extensive information on approved strategies for advertising in the real-world setting. I loved reading the book and the insider narration as they further helped to increase my knowledge of advertising strategies. With an extensive background on the behavior of humans and customers in general, the author explores the advertising effect and how reputable brands have incorporated the strategies into their operations. I would recommend this book to my friends as a good read.
November 22, 2022
A self aggrandising account of a successful career. I felt like 50% of this book was Ferrier telling me to watching a video on YouTube. This is quite dated now and didn’t really satisfy me in any way. It’s a book about advertising for people who don’t work in advertising. I didn’t realise this when I downloaded it.
3 stars because he’s clearly very good and I admire the work he’s been a part of. I’d give it 1 star in terms of content and writing style. More satisfying to watch the actual product than have it described to you in a monotonous, arrogant way.
3 stars because he’s clearly very good and I admire the work he’s been a part of. I’d give it 1 star in terms of content and writing style. More satisfying to watch the actual product than have it described to you in a monotonous, arrogant way.
August 27, 2017
When I've started to read this book my first impression was that I've already read all of this in a million other places, but then it turned to be more interesting. I liked the stress on how seen somebody's actions is more important than words, and I like the general sentiment that advertising is not evil.
August 18, 2017
One of the best books I've read on Advertising and influencing behaviour. It provides a framework for guiding the creative execution of the big idea. This will go on the shelf to be reread in the very near future.
January 17, 2019
A fascinating book that's not really about advertising and marketing, but is actually about behavioral science and how to drive change. Definitely worth the read - even if you're not in the marketing/advertising business.
July 7, 2019
One of the best advertising books I've ever read. A wonderful book with lots of insights on the art of advertising from a man who's walked the talk. I can't recommend this book enough for anyone interested in advertising and marketing.
August 26, 2023
looks at some great advertising examples that reframed consumer perceptions on a brand. Gives food for thought on generating new ideas for the brands i work with (i work in advertising funnily enough)
September 9, 2025
Možda i najbolja knjiga iz oblasti advertajzinga. Dosta informacija, dosta primjera. Svakako nezaobilazno štivo za sve one koji se bave gore navedenom oblašću. Kao što je to i autor napomenuo, striktno voditi računa o tome da se naučeno može (i mora) koristiti poštujući etičke principe.
January 30, 2019
A good book about how advertising works in general. A good way to learn some consumer psychology. But overall examples are too obvious.
May 31, 2019
Straightforward view on the psychological principles behind advertising w/o jargon.
July 20, 2021
really great straightforward read with advertising techniques!! Easy to read with lots of good case studies
January 23, 2021
Další z řady knížek, která nabízí pohled do behaviorálních věd v marketingu. Ale tahle kromě teorie nabízí i praktický návod, který můžete hned aplikovat ve své strategii i kreativě. Velmi čtivé a pro milovníky oceněných kampaní z Cannes Lions inspirativní. Mrzí mě, že jsem se k této knize dostal až teď. Ušetřilo by mi to v práci spoustu času.
November 8, 2014
Niente di nuovo sotto il sole: sono sempre gli stessi 3/4 principi psicologici sottostanti il cambiamento del comportamento. Adam Ferrier però li correda di esempi pratici che li rendono estremamente affascinanti oltre che comprensibili (al di là della teoria), scatenando ogni volta "l'effetto aha"
June 13, 2014
An easy to read book with an interesting fundamental premise that the best way to change behaviour is via action - not emotional connections (the current industry convention).
June 30, 2015
Really cool. Very insightful.
August 8, 2015
The modern Cialdini (referencing influence - the science of persuasion) with excellent Australian case studies and solid references. The highlight of my reading year so far!
September 9, 2015
Very inspiring! Highly recommended
October 27, 2016
Mediocre, could have been an amazing book and then it gets repetitive. Worth a one time read not sure if a second read will be worth it though.
July 9, 2019
Пересказ знаменитых книг (идей) по психологии со слабой их привязкой к рекламе.
A retelling of the famous books (ideas) on psychology with weak links to advertising.
A retelling of the famous books (ideas) on psychology with weak links to advertising.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews