Customer Reviews

Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here: Inside the 300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume

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Who would believe that a book about marketing and advertising, subjects usually considered rather academic, mundane, and dull, could be exciting and very informative, as well as interesting to read. Well, here is one and I can recommend it without hesitation.

Now, there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty: the marketing and advertising of goods and services are changing rapidly. And this remarkable book, "Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here" by David Verklin and Bernice Kanner, proves it beyond all doubt. This is not a book just for the marketing and advertising professional; it is a book that will be enjoyed by all readers because virtually all of you out there are consumers of goods and services and most of you are joined, in some way or other and to some extent, to the electronic media matrix that is pervasive in our world today. If you watch television or listen to radio, if you're connected to the Internet, if you own a cellphone or other communication device, and even if you read print publications, you are affected by the world of modern marketing and advertising. There is no escaping it short of becoming a hermit in some unknown, faraway retreat, outside of the normal channels of the human community. There is good reason that the subtitle of this book is "Inside the 300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume."

I do have a personal interest in what Verklin and Kanner explore in their book. First, way back in the 1980s and for two years, I was the director of advertising for one of the largest destination resorts in the southwestern part of the United States. I worked directly with the marketing department, was privy to all of their selling techniques, and was required to design advertising and deal personally with all the media. Back then, of course, the advertising game was much simpler than today's since our attention was directed mainly to television, radio, and print publications. There was no Internet as it exists today, no cell phones, no IPods, no BlackBerrys, and "globalization" was a term sometimes heard in political discourse but it had not yet evolved into the economic buzzword that captivates the world market as it now does. Secondly, I have managed a website for ten years that depends almost exclusively on advertising in order to survive -- hence, I want to know what the future holds for marketing and advertising. Now that you have my caveats, let's briefly visit some things that Verklin and Kanner have to say.

From the very start, in the Preface in fact, Verklin offers the reader a tempting bit of text that's hard to resist. "Thanks for glancing," he begins. "That's really all I need from you. Guys like me will pay you for your glance. What I'm really after, however, is something more -- something we call 'engagement.' I'll reward you bigtime for that...." Glancing? That's all he wants me to do? Well, yes, but not quite. There's a lot more. First, the "glance." Then, of course, the "engagement." What does all this mean? That is what's explained throughout the book, along with an insider view of the multibillion dollar business that confronts most of us each and every day.

The book is divided into three sections: (1) The Lay of Medialand; (2) A Whole New Ball Game; and (3) Tomorrow. This last section contains only one chapter, something I mention now because the title of the chapter is a real teaser: "What's Really Sexy about Porn? (A Peek at What's to Come)." Now I have to confess that after perusing the table of contents, and taking note of that chapter's title, I immediately opened the book to page 201 and began reading (it's amazing how the words "sexy" and "porn" catch someone's attention!). I always suspected that pornography was first in line when it came to utilizing a new medium (e.g., very soon after photography was invented in the 19th century, it was put to use in the sex industry), and the authors confirm this for me. As they say: "If you want to know what media will look like tomorrow, look at what the sex industry is up to today. Even before the get-rich-quick schemers jump in, porn has landed, almost always the first application a new medium gets." This may be a sad commentary on human nature; nevertheless, pornography has been around for millennia and will probably be around forever. This last chapter, however, does look into the future of media and provides some informative speculation.

Now that the last chapter has been noted, let's get back to the book itself. I must congratulate the authors for the very clever chapter titles, most of them beginning with the word "Why," which is always a suggestive "teaser." The titles, in spite of the words used, are merely indicators and do not necessarily reflect the entire subject covered. Let me give you just a few that I thought were particularly provocative: "Why Newspapers Hate Craig and His Infamous 'List'" - Chapter 5; "Why Outdoor Companies Pray for Traffic Jams" - Chapter 6; "Why Wikipedia Ticks Off the Other Media" - Chapter 9; "Why Honda Hates the Internet...and Those Who Haunt It" - Chapter 15. One of my favorites was "Data Mining: Why Your TV May Think You're Gay" - Chapter 13. (I think I actually read this latter chapter right after I read the chapter on porn -- amazing what a teaser-term can do. Fortunately, this book can be read out of sequence.)

Suffice to say there is something in this book that will appeal to most readers. There's a discussion about why TV ratings are overrated, why Legoland is visited by grown men, why the Army's best new recruitment tool is a video game, and "Why the Smart Money Moved Its Chips from Poker to Bulls" - Chapter 22. All of the companies and trade names mentioned by the authors will be familiar to you and you'll learn some of the little "secrets" behind their marketing campaigns. And, finally, both authors are eminently qualified to write about this subject. Verklin is CEO of one of the world's largest ad-buying companies and Kanner (who unfortunately passed away shortly after completion of the manuscript) was a marketing expert and author of several books on advertising.

All in all, "Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here" provides a fascinating look into a world that most of us are not intimate with except on the consumer side. I would venture to say that, once you've finished this book, you'll never look at the TV, cell phone, IPod, Internet, or other media experience quite the same again. Highly recommended!

Too many cases are not familiar to the people outside North America. That's why make the overall findings and conclusions not that convincing to everyone. Plus the writing style is definitely not in plain and readable English.

Extremely well written, full of lots of pertinent and timely information. As someone with over 30 years in the Media Business I found it an extremely worthwhile read.

Reading this book makes you appreciate how fast the digital advertising space has been evolving. Written only a few years ago, the book hardly has any mention of Facebook or Twitter and what these mediums have done to digital advertising.

But for all more "traditional" (a very relative term) forms of advertising, starting with print, through radio, TV, and online (up until the onset of Facebook) it is a very comprehensive and helpful primer to the industry. It's written in an engaging and entertaining way. Its tone is objective, even though its writers are industry insiders.

Granted... I am only halfway finished, but a couple of glaring factual errors are making me doubt the veracity of every part of this book.

In regards to Super Bowl advertising, the author states "While the action on the field is rarely super, the ads often are and have been ever since McIntosh launched its Apple computer with the now-infamous 'Why 1984 Won't Be Like 1984' spot during the scrimmage." It is intriguing to me that a man who bills himself as one of the most knowledgeable people in advertising does not know that this commercial is where "Apple" launched its "Macintosh computer."

The second, and more embarrassing, error is also in regards to Apple. In the chapter "A Video Game is the Army's Best Recruitment Tool", the author states "'America's Army: Special Forces,' Where players try to earn a Green Beret by completing Special Forces missions, have been released. Apple created a knockoff: Boot Camp." As a user of Apple's "Boot Camp", I can state without a doubt that this is not a knockoff of the US Army video game. As a matter of fact, it's not even a game. Apple's Boot Camp is a utility used to allow Macintosh users to run Windows on their systems.

Perhaps my slightly above-average knowledge of Apple has spoiled this read for me. However, I cannot help but wonder now as I continue through this book, if the rest of the content is fabricated as well. I'm not sure if Verklin or the publisher even bothered to employ a fact checker for this book. This is a huge disappointment for me, as I purchased the book for a research project. If you're reading this book, make sure your purpose is only entertainment.

I liked the book, especially because it was our only textbook, but Where the Suckers Moon and Hey Whipple Squeeze this were much more entertaining. This book gives a forecast as to what the internet is and will continue to do to the ad business. Great book if you are looking for new ideas or going to do internet marketing.

This is a pretty good book that discusses how the "new media" has affected marketing.

In particular, the author discusses blogs, podcasting, Tivo, YouTube, Wikipedia, Google and others. He provides a lot of statistics and some historical perspective to highlight the impact of new media.

While high on statistics and the pros and cons of each technology, there isn't much strategy on how to best use it. This is kind of understandable since everyone is also trying to answer the same question!

If you have an interest in marketing and the new media, pick it up.

The book begins with the premise that we as consumers are very dependent on media. Facts are presented in a way that can surprise one to thinking that most of our waking hours is consumed by being "tvholics", "magaziners" "mobile device gurus" and "internet junkies".

There were three parts to the book. The first part focused on the culture and historical nature of media. It traces how TV sitcoms and ratings are greatly influenced by advertisers. It continues to show the evolution of medialand and how advertisers spend so much money researching on the market and its clients. The profitability and return of investment becomes the epicenter and drive for marketability.

The second part focused on the digital revolution and how Apple, Wikipedia, and other innovative players carefully changed the landscape forcing advertisers to reconsider their strategies and reflect on how they can continue to evolve and reach consumers in a more intuitive manner. The reason for this urgency is that consumers are taking control of what they want to see and hear. The invention of TiVo, YouTube and Myspace are prime examples of consumers tuning out those pesty ads they don't want to see. Even some browsers have blocked advertisers from popping up on web pages. We even tend to buy our popcorn and nachos while the movie is showing the ads before the main feature, just to show you how we want more control of what we see. Therefore, it takes us to a new level of consumer sovereignty.

The third and final part was about the future. Censorship drove the porn industry to come up with innovative ways to market their needs. Consumer accessibility was key in designing strategies to improve the game.

I found the title of the book quite interesting. However, as I started to read the chapters, it started to bore me. For one, I am one of those many "mediaholics" Verklin and Kanner mentioned at the beginning of their book. In other words, I did not find anything new and exciting from the information mapped out in all the sections of the book. Yup, so what if I block my pop up windows, or use TiVo for blissful uninterrupted time to watch my reality TV shows, or enjoy checking those global avatars on YouTube, at least I control what I want to see when I want to see it. One thing I do agree with the authors, the world is changing.

How businesses are following technolgy in order to reach customers is truly amazing. I never knew some of this stuff was possible. David Verklin is a guru to advertisers about where they should be putting their money. This book is not only for people in the advertising industry, but for everyone who wants to know what's going to be happening next. Ads on your iPhone? Custom ads when you turn on your computer -- based on what you've ordered online? Anything and everything is possible and is on the horizon. Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here is a really a cool book.