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Her-larious - Kelly Coveny Gets Real Again

One of our favorite authors is back and as sharp as ever with her latest book, Observations of a Sometimes Stiletto-Wearing but Mostly Fleeced-Out Working Mom on the Outskirts of Manhattan. What happens when a triple A-type, high maintenance, high paid advertising writer resigns her job in Manhattan to pursue her dream of becoming a platinum-producing rock-star, best-selling novelist, super-Mom from the suburbs? Buckle up for a wild adventure that never fails to find magic in even the most mundane moments. Check it out.

Ignore Everybody (Just Not This Author)

Hugh MacLeod, the blogger behind the popular gapingvoid.com has just released his first book, Ignore Everybody, And 39 Other Keys to Creativity. It’s a quick read that expands on the whip-smart insights and cartoons found on the blog. It’s common sense, e-duh advice dispensed for the risk-adverse world such as, “Selling out is harder than it looks: Diluting your product to make it more commercial will just make people like it less.” Great stuff. Check it out.

Interview with Your Brain – Buy•ology

In our July edition of the blog we told you about Luke Sullivan’s great book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Advertising. We read a lot of marketing books and if you’re taking the time to read our blog, then chances are, you need to read them too. We’re currently reading Martin Lindstrom’s Buy•ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. It’s a fascinating look into neuromarketing. Want to know why people prefer the taste of Pepsi but still buy Coke? Want to know why mirror neurons affect just about every purchase decision you make? The brain knows. Check it out.

Thinking Inside the Box – The Houdini Solution

Ernie Schenck is one of our favorite contributors to Communication Arts. His Advertising column is a highlight of each issue. Like his pal Luke Sullivan, Ernie penned a must-have book for everyone with a brand story to tell. In The Houdini Solution, Schenck shows you how to use tight budgets and last-minute deadlines to your advantage. It’s easy to think outside the box with a millions of dollars at your disposal. But lately that box is getting smaller and smaller. Which is why you need this book. Check it out.

Do You Believe in Heaven Now? – The Twinkies Cookbook

Listen up Rachel Ray. And this goes for you too, Emeril, Giada and Naked Chef. Your cookbooks are fish wrap compared to the culinary wonder that is The Twinkies Cookbook. Any hack can whip up a chicken dish. But could you dream up Twinkie Sushi, Twinkie Burrito, or the unbelievably savory Pigs in a Twinkie? Huh? Could you? Check it out.

The Last Lecture. One Year Later.

Today (September 18) marks the one-year anniversary of the day Randy Pausch gave his inspirational Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon. It has since become something of a phenomenon. If you have not had a chance to see it, do yourself a favor and watch. There’s nothing earth shattering here. Nothing you may not have already heard from any secret-to-life self-help guru, or even in your house of worship. But coming from a regular guy who knows that he has a few months to live, the simple message of “don’t be a jerk, be good to yourself and others” - a message we all still struggle to follow - carries far more weight. And Professor Pausch delivers it beautifully. Check it out.

Wisdom of Crowds

Surowiecki first developed his ideas for Wisdom of Crowds in his “Financial Page” column of The New Yorker. Many critics found his premise to be an interesting twist on the long held notion that Americans generally question the masses and eschew groupthink. “A socialist might draw some optimistic conclusions from all of this,” wrote The New York Times. “But Surowiecki’s framework is decidedly capitalist.” Some reviewers felt that the academic language and business speak decreased the impact of the argument. Still, it’s a thought-provoking, timely book: the TV studio audience of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire guesses correctly 91 percent of the time, compared to “experts” who guess only 65 percent correctly. Keep up the good work, comrades. From Amazon.com

The Long Tail

There has been so much buzz about this book I felt a little strange putting it up on the MilkBlog. But, just in case you have not heard about "The Long Tail", here are my two cents. Like most marketing books you really only need to read the first 3-4 chapters (the rest tends to be case studies), but the insights author Chris Anderson discusses are mind bending. The subtitle "Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More" is all your really need to know to understand the basics of this book. The author explains how in traditional retail, you have the 80/20 rule, with 20 percent of the products accounting for 80 percent of the revenue. Online, instead, he sees the "98 percent rule." Where 98 percent of all the possible choices get chosen by someone, and where the 90 percent that is only available online accounts for half the revenue and two-thirds of the profits. He also explains how filters and recommender systems that help people find what they are really looking for are crucial ingredients. Thus, in a nutshell, Anderson's theory is that mass culture is fading, and being replaced by a series of niches. I highly recommend this read to anyone in marketing.

Michael Kosowicz - Milk

Distraction: Being Human in the Digital Age

Obsessed with what we can do with our mobile phones and the Web, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture, because so much is changing and so fast. We are distracted by it. This book steps back to look at our use of new technology and draws some uncomfortable and challenging conclusions about what society may need to do to get the best, not the worst, out of the digital era. Why are our fundamental notions of space and time changing? Why going mobile is the big difference. How new technology makes us prefer the distant to the close at hand Can we sustain current levels of communication? Will we have to start blocking things out? How are people doing this already? Why time is the biggest issue for most people, and technology is not helping. How can we make media deeper? How our sense of who we are is changing too. Why building trust online is going to be so important, and such a challenge. Why we need to focus on social networks. Why a new sense of discipline is required to prevent us from drowning in distraction. Why each of us can use digital to be creative.

Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound

Martin Lindstrom's Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands Through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight And Sound provides an unusual treatise based on Millward Brown's study linking branding and sensory awareness. 'Sensory branding' is a relatively new concept: Brand Sense takes the next step from study results to outline a six-step program for bringing brand building into modern times. Examples cover products and retail marketing alike, demonstrating the basics of establishing an appealing marketing approach based on more than sight and sound alone. Interesting examples include: Did you know the new car smell we are all so fond of is actually a scent that is added at the factory when a new car is rolling off the assembly line? Or that the crispy sound of corn flakes came as a result of focus groups giving feedback. This book is a great read and provides some very interesting insights into marketing.