Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #862 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-31
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Synopsis
"It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be" is a handbook of how to succeed in the world - a pocket "bible" for the talented and timid to help make the unthinkable and the impossible possible. Advertising guru Paul Arden offers up his wisdom on issues as diverse as problem solving, responding to a brief, communicating, playing your cards right, making mistakes and creativity, all endeavours that can be applied to aspects of modern life. This book provides an insight into the world of advertising and is a quirky compilation of quotes, facts, pictures, wit and wisdom, packed into easy-to-digest, bite-sized spreads.

Customer Reviews

Great thinking from the ad industry
This books is a great collection of many ideas, thoughts, ironies and creative thinking from the ad industry. Plus a few new thoughts. I've bought loads of these (and Purple Cow) and given them away to clients, desperate to get them to think a little more creatively. I use it with students as well. A must read (and the second book). Quick to read and easy, maybe that's why it's sold over 1/2 million. Paul was regarded as one of the great all time creatives within advertising but sadly he died recently - a great loss to the ad community.

Snake oil

I have no doubt that Arden was a genius in the field of advertising. However, this little volume is like some of Edward De Bono offcuts with random graphics,

fine if it fell out of a cereal packet or a xmas cracker, but £5 for this book is a joke.

Arden's big phrase was 'astonish me' - he was obviously too astonished to make any effort with the writing of this book. The only astonishing thing here is that 1500 words of meretricious garbling can cost a fiver.

Paaarp

glib
I read this book in a bookshop in about half an hour.

The advice is often utterly foolish.

For instance, anyone with half a brain knows that, irksome though it may be, a college qualification is an essential "gateway" into most firms, though perhaps it wasn`t when Arden himself was starting out, and the advertising industry was still in its infancy in the UK.

It`s also the case that, although the unusual routes to success aremore newsworthy, conventional methods exist for a reason, and following them is therefore advisable (dreary though that may be).

I`d add, as an artist, that this book suggests a glib attitude to creativity, as if one can simply begin a project utterly detached form tradtitions, a past, previous solutions etc.

The design of this book is enjoyable however.