Hoopla [Hardcover]

Crispin Porter + Bogusky (Author), Warren Berger (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 1, 2006

They’ve been called “visionary” by both Newsweek and Time, hailed as “the ad world’s most talked-about agency” by USA Today, and dubbed “the next big thing” by Business 2.0. They launched the Mini car craze in America, took on Big Tobacco in the controversial Truth campaign, sexed up Virgin Airlines, and made Burger King sizzle once again. And they did it with bold publicity stunts, infectious viral marketing strategies, funny masks, folding paper, outrageous Internet hoaxes, and a weird, garter belt–wearing chicken who became a cultural sensation. And this random madness has a very sound method to it: Hoopla.

In Hoopla, the secret inner workings of this freewheeling, break-the-mold idea factory are revealed for the first time. Veteran journalist Warren Berger, who has tracked and reported on the CP+B phenomenon over the past decade, fully examines and deconstructs the methods that lie behind the agency’s seeming madness, while the striking images throughout the book (captioned by the CP+B creative team) provide insights into the logic, intuition, mischief, and passion that leads to the creation of Hoopla. The result is a fascinating journey into a realm of unbridled creativity.

See the madness. Read the method. Hoopla.

Hoopla also includes practical, step-by-step advice on how to find and promote big ideas (even on a shoestring budget), and how to generate excitement and hype in today’s cluttered, noisy communications landscape. If you’re a marketer, a communicator of any type, or anyone who needs to get out a message and generate some buzz, Hoopla will change the way you think about the art of communication.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

In the last five years, a small Miami advertising agency called Crispin Porter + Bogusky progressed from relative obscurity to being hailed as the top creative agency in the U.S., and arguably the world. The work of CP+B has consistently redefined advertising and changed an entire industry’s definition of the term “media.” CP+B uses a media-agnostic approach, producing work that is challenging, irreverent, hilarious, shocking, and always compelling—so much so that it often feels more like great entertainment than advertising. CP+B’s clients have included the anti-tobacco organization Truth, MINI Cooper/US, AND1, Burger King, Molson USA, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Google, IKEA, EarthLink, GAP Men’s, and MAXIM. In 2003, in an unprecedented sweep of the foremost awards in the world, CP+B took Grand Prix at Cannes, an O’Toole Award for Overall Creative Excellence from the American Association of Advertising Agencies, as well as the grand prizes at the CLIOS, EFFIES, Kelly’s, OBIES, APG awards, and the One Show. The agency and its work have been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, Fast Company, Time, Newsweek, Advertising Age, Creativity, and Archive. In 2005, CP+B was named Agency of the Year by both Advertising Age and Creativity.

Warren Berger has written about advertising for the past 15 years, as a contributor to Advertising Age, ADWEEK, Communication Arts, Graphis, and other industry publications (he first began writing about Crispin Porter + Bogusky in the early 1990s for Ad Age’s Creativity and CA). His writing about advertising and media has also appeared regularly in mainstream consumer publications such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Wired, Reader’s Digest, and Business 2.0. He is the author of the acclaimed book Advertising Today (Phaidon, 2001) and co-author, with Lee Clow and Jean-Marie Dru, of Disruption Stories (TBWA, 2005). He is the founder and current editor of the quarterly magazine One, published by the One Club for Art & Copy.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: powerHouse Books (November 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576873129
• ISBN-13: 978-1576873120
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 1.2 x 11.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For full info on me check out http://www.warrenberger.com and my blog http://AMoreBeautifulQuestion.com

I'm a longtime journalist (The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, Reader's Digest) and book author who has written about a variety of subjects over the years--creativity, innovation, and questioning being particular favorites.

A few years ago, I set out to find a good answer to the fundamental question: "What is design?" The resulting book, GLIMMER (retitled "CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies, and T-Shaped People" in the U.S. Penguin paperback), took the best thinking and principles of the world's top designers--and made those ideas accessible to everyone and applicable to any challenge, personal or professional.

I'm currently working on a new book on the importance of questioning in innovation and creativity, called A More Beautiful Question: An Inquiry into the Value of Inquiry, which will be published by Bloomsbury. My previous books are Advertising Today, Hoopla, Nextville (co-authored with Barbara Corcoran), and No Opportunity Wasted (co-authored with Phil Keoghan), which appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. I'm also the founding editor of ONE, an international magazine focusing on advertising and design and the co-founder of The Marmaduke Writing Factory, a writers group based in Westchester County, New York.

Finally, one of my big side projects in the past few years was writing the historical thriller THE PURPLES, about the rise and fall of the notorious Purple Gang in 1920s Detroit. THE PURPLES was a semifinalist is the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel awards, and was a blast to write.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good book by some of the most creative people in America today April 18, 2007

By Dave Lakhani VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

First a little criticism, I have to agree with others about the cover of the book, it is made from sandpaper which I find very cool, but the problem is that it gets white scratch marks all over it right away and it is abrasive if you set it on your wooden table for example.

That said, the cover and the layout are some of the most endearing qualities of the book. They give you an inside look at the minds and ideas of Crispin Porter. They also give you many ideas.

The book is not a fast read, it requires that you digest it to get the full value of what is there. This is not a traditional advertising book that is going to give you five steps to anything, it is something quite different.

This book will set your mind ablaze with new ideas and wonderful thoughts. I love they way they shun political correctness.

I also truly enjoyed reading the thinking behind some of the campaigns and seeing others that I had no idea belonged to them.

This book belongs in every serious creative's library, as well as the libraries of admen, adwomen, serious entrepreneurs, and marketers large and small.

Take some time with this book, you'll need it.

You'll also profit greatly from it.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Crispin, Porter, and Bogusky's Hoopla leaves room for improvement July 8, 2007

By Pseudoreid

Format:Hardcover

A well intentioned book meant to profile one of America's leading advertising agencies ends up leading the reader on a confused journey lacking clarity, consistency, and organization. What could have been a prolific view into the creative process behind some of the most successful advertising campaigns eventually leaves the reader scratching their head wondering what the hell the point of the book was. Although the book graces some of the insights and strategies that were leveraged to develop the creative idea, most of the narrative hinges on a self indulgent and narcissistic viewpoint of how great CP&B thinks they are.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Proof: Great Advertising Still Getting Made. January 7, 2007

By MARK DIMASSIMO

Format:Hardcover

It's not about whether this is a great book, it's about the advertising, and the advertising is GREAT. There's a lot of it here. Big, original ideas that can stand up to competition from Jon Stewart, Maxim, the Onion, and YouTube.

Competition the great advertising of the past didn't have to deal with. Today's media environment has most "creative" advertising agencies choosing "engagement" over relevance and a few choosing relevance over engagement. But here, in each of these campaigns, we get it all -- big relevant campaign platforms, insight into the contemporary audience and culture, and ingenious ideas as brilliantly engaging as shiny new toys.

While there's been much debate about individual executions, it bears mention here that taken as a whole, these ideas WORKED. They worked in the marketplace, for all or nearly all of these clients. It's easy for people in the business to forget that there were a lot of not particularly effective anti-tobacco USAGE advertising campaigns before Truth. Or that Burger King was in a two decades long shame spiral of agency hopscotch, and widely thought of as the worst client in advertising. Or that it was generally believed that winning the account would be the end of the golden days at CPB, that compromise and equivocation would follow as surely as the night follows the day IF they weren't lucky enough to be more or less immediately fired. Then CPB shut the rest of us up by stepping up their game. This told us that even if they were going to lose the BK business, they weren't going to lose their nerve in the process. As it turns out, they still have both.

Mantropy Disease, Subservient Chicken, Let's Motor, Infect Truth...etc. It's terrific to have access to all this great work in one place. And, in addition to the work, you get some windows into the culture. I really enjoyed reading the emails. They reminded me of the best moments at the best places I've been. (If you've ever worked in a great place, you know what I'm talking about.)

The confidence that radiates from these snippets of CPB culture shine through every choice. The graphic design that sometimes appears to have been all too easy when viewing individual campaigns in isolation is damned impressive when you view all of this work together. Hoopla is a good word, with and without the irony that was no doubt intended. The exuberance that comes through the range of design styles, much more extensive than the range of brands represented here, is undeniable. It's exciting.

Is there room to do better? Absolutely. That's why everyone in the business and art of communicating who wants to feel inspired should have access to a copy of this book.

CPB has shown us what a thoroughly contemporary advertising agency should be, that you can speak in the current idiom and still do great advertising. They're not the only ones. Right now, they're just the best.