The other day, I was thinking about how a few books I’ve read have really helped to shape my thinking on advertising and branding. Then, I was curious about what books relevant to our industry my friends at b&a would recommend. Here’s what I came up with:

Ogilvy on Advertising – David Ogilvy. “I read Ogilvy on Advertising to prepare myself for my first interview at b&a. This 1983 publication is still very relevant today.” ~ Tim

Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands – Kevin Roberts. “Roberts tells a story of lovemarks, which can’t be owned by the business creating the product, but instead are owned by those who love them. His thoughts on emotional connections being built through advertising have helped me immensely.” ~ Tim

*Personality Not Included – Rohit Bhargava. “Brands have personalities and *PNI gives great examples and tips on how to express brand personality and avoid the dreaded faceless company. I read *PNI last summer and it’s inspired me to think deeper about what brands really are.” ~ Tim

Blink – Malcolm Gladwell. “I really enjoyed Blink by Malcolm Gladwell because it put such a fascinating cautionary tale for how we evaluate the meaning of advertising testing and research. Take the story about testing the Herman Miller chair, now the most popular and copied chair design on the planet, but one that tested terribly. It’s a perfect example of how ‘different’ doesn’t always equate to ‘bad.’” ~ Holly

The Brand Gap – Marty Neumeier. “Very brief and easy to reference that gives a lot of smart ways of thinking about how to bridge the gap between strategy and design.” ~ Rebecca

Juicing the Orange – Pat Fallon and Fred Senn. “Lots of great case studies that are organized by problem. For example, ‘revitalizing an old brand.’ Good reference when we’re facing a new problem and it gives good ways to look at it.” ~ Rebecca

Truth, Lies & Advertising – Jon Steel. “Good reference when writing briefs and designing research studies.” ~ Rebecca

Perfect Pitch – Jon Steel. “Excellent book about how to make presentations powerful, impactful and inspiring. A good outline of the hard work to get there and shows ways to do them without PowerPoint.” ~ Rebecca

Groundswell – Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. “This book is easily the best book about social media that I’ve read. I love it because it thinks about social media strategically, rather than just a bunch of tools and technologies. Plus it’s loaded with research data.” ~ Billy

Small Giants – Bo Burlingham. “Changed my perception of business success. Great storytelling about companies that focus on amazing quality rather than volume and dollars. In a world of greed, it’s a nice change of pace.” ~ Billy