‘How to Plan Advertising’ is one of the foundational texts of account planning. Originally published in 1997 by the APG, and edited by Alan Cooper, the book brings together eleven essays from some of the discipline’s leading practitioners. Together the collection of papers explore how strategy, research and creativity can combine to produce more effective advertising. Here’s five of my favourite lessons from the book.

In 2010, Les Binet and Sarah Carter began publishing a monthly ‘myth busting’ article for AdMap. 18 years later, and with support from the APG, Binet and Carter collated 66 of these essays to form the book ‘How Not To Plan’. Here’s eight of the book’s lessons that resonated with me most.

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.