Cutting Edge Advertising: How to Create the World's Best for Brands in the 21st Century

Cutting Edge Advertising is the first and only book providing a step-by-step plan to create cutting edge print advertising for the twenty-first Century. Over 300 world famous print ads are discussed and analysed in depth by the people who created them - the Gods of advertising now, not forty years ago. Internationally respected names like David Abbott, Tim Delaney, John Hegarty, Gary Goldsmith, Bob Barrie, Neil French and Jeff Goodby - from the world's most admired advertising agencies - share their secrets in a carefully structured, inspirational journey through the contemporary truths of doing great ads.

The book serves as a reference text for creatives, clients and colleges. No other single title covers the subject so completely - from research and strategy, through to conceptualising and crafting. For creatives in every agency of the world, the book provides a step-by-step methodology which can be applied immediately in their daily work. It means they can stop copying and start creating their own cutting edge work. By learning how to think like the masters, they can become masters themselves. For advertisers with brands to build, the book offers hundreds of insights into how the most internationally renowned campaigns were crafted. As more clients take direct control of their own advertising, the book arms them with vital methodology and a new way to think. In the author's words, "This is the book I wished I'd had when I started in the business." Unique features in the book include: 1. A chapter which demolishes the myths and formulae of how advertising should be done. For the first time in one book, world creative leaders explain why methodologies and precepts developed in the 1950s and 60s are no longer valid - and why many are actually harmful in today's context.

2. A chapter which explains how brand building has changed. Exciting new brands have emerged, displacing old ones. The strategists share their secrets and explain why a different kind of advertising is needed. 3. A chapter which actually tells you how to get ideas. No other advertising book has ever done this. The creative process is demystified. 4. Two chapters devoted to the craft of art direction and copy, where experts tell what to do and what not, which rules to break, and which rules never to. 5. A chapter of inspiring advice for everyone in advertising: how a cutting edge career can be nurtured and accelerated. The leaders of the industry discuss their own fears of failure, and what it takes to succeed.

6. No other advertising reference work provides 300 contemporary ads from the best agencies in the USA, UK, Europe and Australia. Details of how the ads are created and crafted are explained, sharing the decisions which had to be made along the way. The advice of the masters are expressed in simple, frank and (sometimes) provocative terms. 7. No other book of this kind addresses such issues as consumer psychology, how to strategise, how brands are being built; how cutting edge thinking can be applied to global campaigns; how to build a world class career and reputation.

Jim Aitchison has won over 600 advertising awards. He was creative director of The Ball Partnership, Singapore, and executive creative director of Batey Ads, Singapore. He has judged The One Show, America's leading awards show, and the London International Advertising Awards.