The first thing that impressed me about Alexander Bogusky’s new book was its size, a sleek 152 pages. There was no risk of droning. Just enough content to make some key observations and then wrap it up. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the mind behind the subservient chicken for Burger King or the Endangered Man for MAXIM Magazine or the Whadafuxup anti-smoking campaigns. A how-to-make-great-ads book? That territory had been done to death, although I was open to Alex Bogusky telling me how to do just that, even if it seemed kind of unoriginal. However, I was pleasantly surprised, even though contents within would not bring me any closer to touching a One Show Pencil or a Cannes Lion.
Baked-In is a business book that happens to be written by a creative guy, whose secret to great creative may be, according to the book, Bogusky’s involvement in the business of his clients beyond making ads. Bogusky talks about a 3D printer that CP+B owns. It actually prints 3D prototypes of products, like sunglasses. He never mentions printing sandwiches or beer, but he does go on to describe how much branding has changed radically since 2001. And if you’re just figuring that out now, well, you’re way late.
The big parity brand approach is dying. Take Starbuck’s as a modern marketing example. They sold themselves on the basis of their store experience alone, without advertising (they still do very little advertising). Going into Starbucks and buying a coffee is the product and it sells itself every time someone does these two things. The marketing and the product are fused together, or baked in. Products that are baked in sell themselves, which of course is ideal and saves oodles of money on fancy advertising campaigns.
There’s also a handy 28 Rules Section for "baking," with titles like Culture Trumps Influencers, meaning experts are vaguely interesting, but culture tells you what's really happening. And Knock Down the Walls, a nod to silo busting, bring disciplines closer together so that all marketing efforts can buy into the same idea.
Everything mentioned in the book, seems perfectly reasonable in today’s new ad culture of social marketing, transparency and blogospheres, but clients are still stubborn and stuck in their own comfort zones. So in a way, the book is a kind of renegade manifesto for people who would attempt to make change and bring clients kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The aughts may be over, but some clients, in spite of their Twitter feeds and Facebook Fan pages, may still be hopelessly stuck in the 80s. We’ll see where these clumsy behemoths end up in 10 years.