Book of the Decade award

OK, we don't give awards, but if we did, this is it. A year ago Briggs and Stuart published the first marketing book to really explain why so much advertising is wasted, and they measured a billion in ad dollars from 20 blue chip companies to prove their case. Turns out that about 37% of ad budgets fail completely, and that success in advertising hinges on measuring ad campaigns while they are in flight.

What works, they say? Rebalancing the media mix would give most CMOs a 10 to 20 percent lift in results. Hitting prospects from different channels at once outweighs single-channel frequency. GRPs are fallacious, and not all reach is created equal. Perhaps most important, organizations have to be willing to measure, and then to change.

A year later, I still carry it around, as useful as my laptop. Man, what a read.