Rigorous Magic: Communication Ideas and their Application - Tapa dura

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One of the most beautiful buildings in the American Mid-west is the Milwaukee Art Museum. It is a fantastic piece of modern architecture, and from a distance with its winged roof, it looks like a great bird perching on the shores of Lake Michigan. Inside it's no less impressive. Walking around it you get the distinct feeling that you're entering into another world, a world combining both rigour and magic. The picture of the corridor shown on the front cover, taken inside this amazing museum by photographer Kieran Negoda, brings this to life. But to Steve and Jim the picture is more than just a visual metaphor for the name of the book. It's also a place in which they've experienced a lot of the issues that are dealt within this book as it's here that they've run several idea workshops for SABMiller - the global brewer that has its North American headquarters in Milwaukee. And in many ways, the building represents the business of creating ideas - inspirational, visionary and yet, at times, utterly frustrating. Steve and Jim both have both spent their careers working separately - Steve at BMP and PHD, Jim at McCann, Ogilvy and Nota Bene - but they have now both have found a natural home for themselves at the WPP media agency, Mediaedge:cia - Steve as joint Managing Director of Mediaedge:cia in the UK, and Jim as Global Director of Communications Planning and also Regional Director of Retail for Europe Middle East and Africa. They have increasingly overlapped in their careers on the SABMiller business; a business which has taken them all over the world. This journey hasn't been one of sterile airports and hotel rooms, rather it's been one in which they've really experienced the different markets...from working at the Praha hotel in Prague, a bastion to communism designed to be the place for 'the last stand' (with the tanks on the lawn) when capitalism came rolling into town, to going to saunas in the Russian countryside in -30 degree conditions, to talking to hostel dwellers in the townships of Johannesburg to arguing with unscrupulous cabbies at 2am in Bucharest. Most importantly, it has afforded them some of the most interesting planning work that you can imagine and given them a huge experience in the world of ideas. As a result, they've become fervent believers in the role that communication ideas play at the heart of modern marketing.

De la contraportada

In the world of marketing, communication ideas are talked about endlessly and revered for their magical ability to affect how consumers think, feel and behave towards brands. Despite this, they are poorly understood. How many types of communication idea are there? What are their characteristics and differences? How should you use them? And what makes a good one? Most people in the business simply cannot answer these questions.

Rigorous Magic puts this right. It dispels the myths around communication ideas and creates a practical ‘road map’ for advertisers and marketers to select which types are best for a brand to compete in a noisy and competitive market. Only through this process – of cataloguing, evaluating and building a form of architecture – can we truly begin to understand ideas.

Our industry has too many and, at the same time, not enough ideas. Too many brand ideas, advertising ideas, execution ideas, activation ideas, promotional ideas… and not enough “bloody hell that’s brilliant” ideas. Written by expert practitioners, Rigorous Magic brings a new and universal language to the discussion. If you’re looking for new thinking that will help you quickly identify and execute the right ideas, then this is the hands-on perspective you need.

De la solapa interior

In the marketing and communication world, ideas used to have a simple, passive function: they informed or entertained. They placed either information or entertainment in front of consumers, in the hope of eliciting a purchase reaction. There was no sense of engagement.

But advertisers have begun to think globally and their brands have diversified dramatically. So have agencies. Alongside the traditional advertising agencies, there are PR, brand, media, below-the-line and dozens of other niche specialist agencies. The media world has seen a similar explosion of channels, as consumers take control of the way they access information. Today’s advertisers are looking for something more. They’re looking for ideas that will actively change consumer behaviour – a far more complex challenge. Within this changing landscape, a more sophisticated portfolio of ideas has evolved: ideas that can enhance and develop consumer relationships, work in any media environment and, crucially, deliver precise results.

Communication ideas are here.

"Communication ideas are as important to brands as love is to people. Both are fundamental requirements for growth. In Rigorous Magic Jim and Steve provide original thinking about what these strange things are. Most importantly they tell you how to get your hands on them and how to judge them - before you blow a fortune on an unrequited love."
—Charles Courtier, Chairman & Global CEO, Mediaedge:cia