Stephen King was one of the two founding fathers of the ‘Account Planning’ discipline. On his retirement from J. Walter Thompson (JWT), the advertising agency published a collection of Stephen King’s papers that were written between 1967-1985. A Masterclass in Brand Planning is comprised of 20 of these essays. I’ll summarise five concepts from the book here for those who haven’t read it.

In The Anatomy of Humbug, Paul Feldwick outlines six theories of how advertising works: Salesmanship, seduction, salience, social connection, spin, showbiz. I’ll summarise them all below.

During a recent re-read of Truth, Lies and Advertising I distilled Jon Steel’s ten rules for qualitative research.

So, with a little creative license, I thought I’d share my notes in case others might find them useful.