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And Now a Few Words From Me: Advertising's Leading Critic Lays Down the Law, Once and For All Paperback – August 17, 2004

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Product Details

  • Paperback: 204 pages
  • Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (August 17, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0071441220
  • ISBN-13: 978-0071441223
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As the advertising industry's Dave Barry, Garfield has written the influential ad criticism column "AdReview" for Ad Age for 17 years and is cohost of NPR's On the Media. His first book, aimed at advertising pros, is a brazenly funny take on the industry practices that Garfield loves to hate. "Most advertising is unnecessarily terrible," he writes, proceeding to enumerate the reasons why: a misguided emphasis on rule breaking and originality; misuse of sex, celebrities, humor, special effects and profundity; lack of contact with consumers; and sheer bad taste and immorality. Garfield supports his claims with passionate attacks on specific ads. Calvin Klein turns out "thinly disguised kiddie porn," while McDonald's "we love to see you smile" campaign is "preposterously false." The criticism, however, isn't always consistent. Garfield occasionally knocks highly successful ads, e.g., CK's famous Brooke Shields jean ads. Furthermore, he praises campaigns that violate his own prohibitions. Garfield's apparent ego (he less-than-wittily compares himself to God and declares, "[W]ith well in excess of a thousand ads subjected to my pitiless scrutiny, I've really blown the call only eleven or twelve times") can also wear thin. Oddly, the critic loosens his choke hold on the industry in the final chapter, ineffectually defending it against other critics and halfheartedly attempting to restore the pride of the very audience he has been so busy mocking. Despite the weak finish, though, Garfield offers a mostly humorous and hard-hitting book.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"If you crave insight into the wacky, zany, madcap--albeit very serious--business of advertising, this is a great place to begin."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Wit, wisdom and uncommon common sense.
By Miles D. Moore VINE VOICE on March 13, 2003
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
"Do not be so blindly determined to `think outside the box' that you are constructing your own coffins." This quote, which comes on page 127 of Bob Garfield's new book, "And Now a Few Words from Me," could be the epigraph for the entire book, or indeed for just about every ad review Garfield has written for "Advertising Age" over the last 18 years. An amused and often appalled observer of the wretched excesses of TV advertising, Garfield in his new book eviscerates a number of failed campaigns with the skill of a master surgeon reviewing a botched heart transplant. The operation's not a success, Garfield points out, if the patient dies. (And sometimes the patient DOES die: an abstruse commercial for a Virginia bank, he notes, led to the failure of both the bank and the ad agency.) As Garfield sees it, the problem with much of TV advertising is simple: too many ad copywriters get caught up in the "creativity" of what they do and forget their purpose is to sell products, period. Sometimes the problem is merely a bad choice of celebrity spokesperson--say, hulking millionaire Charles Barkley pitching econobox Hyundais, or red-meat-eschewing Cybill Shepherd as national spokesperson for beef. Just as often, however, ad writers simply whiz past their target audience (the "Dick" campaign for Miller Lite) or offend viewers to the very core of their being (Ford and GM using the 9/11 tragedy as a pretext for great deals on Explorers and Grand Ams). Garfield, as always, is witty, elegant yet blunt about these failures: "Don't roll your eyes and dismiss the negatives," he tells his readers, "because if you do, in due course, that's exactly what your target audience will do with you.Read more ›
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Intelligent Essay that's Wildly Well Written
By Ava Seave on February 20, 2003
Format: Hardcover
Garfield makes you laugh with his pun-filled, brutal analysis of what's bad advertising and what constitutues bad judgement in advertising. He credits advertising with some pretty heavy lifting in the economy -- which is refreshing. Garfield's smart and funny writing helps you quite painlessly get through some important thinking about consumerism and marketing. The book is divided into 10 short chapters (or as Garfield says in the intro, "The Ten Commandments of Advertising , brought to you by God.") which could practically stand on their own. This book is not just for people in the ad biz -- but also for people interested in marketing tactics, marketing strategy and the relationship between media and the consumers they try to influence.
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Bravo
By JWS at "The Little Agency That Could" on February 20, 2003
Format: Hardcover
"And Now A Few Words From Me" is the much needed wake-up call the advertising industry needs. On the heels of the worst 2 years in 40 for our industry, we would all be wise to heed Garfield's "Commandments," for while the industry certainly has changed, it's basic tenets have not. We are hired to move product, and we do that by connecting with our target consumers, not by impressing our agency peers while alienating and furthering the distrust of the general public. Wake up folks. If we want our Clients to spend more money, then we need to sell more stuff.
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A Reality Check!
By Lisa Boggs on March 7, 2003
Format: Hardcover
Not only should this book required reading for those just getting in to the advertisng business, it should be required reading for those already in the business. Garfield provides a reality check for those who need to know, and especially whose who have forgotten, that the purpose of advertising is to sell products. This extremely witty, insightful book reminds us of some of the ways inwhich advertising has failed at this, and sometimes failed on a spectacular level. Each page contains lessons to be learned, and for some, re-learned.
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Advertising Bible
By "sa-b" on February 11, 2004
Format: Hardcover
...i'm not often a blesfemous man but this book IS Advertising Bible. you know nothing about advertising till you read THIS. it's a humane but yet frenzy and straight-talking study on how you SHOULDN'T make advertising; what often made mistakes to avoid. once you read it you go, "...so that's what advertising is all about. can't wait to get started..." now i often measure advertising(mine, others') by what would Bob say about it. hey, if you won't read this book you ain't never gonna know what advertising really is.
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