'How Asia Advertises' by Jim Aitchison is a must-have for every planner and marketer in the region, says Priti Nair Chakravarthy.
'How Asia Advertises' by Jim Aitchison is a must-have for every planner and marketer in the region, says Priti Nair Chakravarthy
It has been a while since I read books on advertising. But Jim Aitchison is an author who was a collector's item for young copywriters when we entered the world of advertising. His books "Cutting Edge Advertising" and "Cutting Edge Commercials" are two books that were on every young aspiring copy guy's collection, including mine.
This is a fairly new book - "How Asia Advertises" by Jim Aitchison - which I picked about 8-10 months ago.
Two things I look for in a book before picking it up - the content and, more importantly, the font size and the number of examples given with pictures. It is very important to see what is being talked about.
"How Asia Advertises" is all that and more. Why should we (Indians) read it?
Our biggest challenge today with the globe becoming "smaller" will be straddling regional and global brand ideas and making them work effectively in different markets.
Aitchison has genuinely very simplistically illustrated this. His insights and take on how and why Asian advertising is different are worth their weight in gold. And this is supported by fantastic case studies from different countries.
The author not only gives elaborate examples with storyboards but also takes you through the marketing problem, the business objective, the strategy and the result of the brand idea that is rolled out. Among them the ones that truly stand out are the Levis photocopier campaign for Japan. The Petronas Campaign (anyone in advertising who has not seen Petronas please get hold of these commercials).
Aitchison's observations like "The West is copy focused >Asia is visual and aural" are so true and will genuinely aid the appreciation and understanding of Asian advertising. He illustrates how the West breaks down the whole into parts and narrows. Whereas Asian culture is more holistic and makes the parts form a more wholesome picture.
The book has a truly impressive collection of 90 path-breaking Asian case studies and campaigns. And this includes Levis, McDonald's, Oil of Olay, Coca Cola, Tiger Beer, IKEA, MTV , The Economist, Johnson & Johnson, Haagen Dazs and many others. The countries the book covers are India, China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Taiwan.
This book is a must-have for every planner and creative person as well as any marketer who wants to advertise in the region. It underlines the importance for understanding the market that is all set to be the next biggest economical boom.
The author is the national creative director, Grey Worldwide
(Coordinated by Pritha Mitra Dasgupta)
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