Book Twenty-Seven of the Book-A-Week Quest
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Inside the 300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume
by David Verklin and Bernice Kanner (2007)
The problem with books that discuss technology is that they're seemingly out-of-date by the time they get published. That's not necessarily the case here, as co-authors Verklin and Kanner spend 200+ pages discussing how the public is constantly bombarded by advertisements in the ever-changing billion dollar global marketing industry. Even though it may not contain antiquated info, I never felt like I was reading anything that I didn't already know.
Advertisers are really putting product placement in movies? They're really finding success in such placement since, in this TiVo age, people simply fast-forward through commercials? You're telling me that you can get advertisements sent to your cell phone now? And "spam" is a new advertising frontier? What? Craziness!
By the time I got halfway through the book, I felt like I was reading the same stuff over and over again. Considering that Verklin worked (or works...I can't remember) for a huge advertising company and he was known as the advertising guy for years, he says nothing negative about the insidiousness of advertising in our society today because he's a part of it himself -- he's the one that helped create the calculating methods of the advertising industry of today. In fact, he's constantly talking up this Carat Industries as a leader in advertising. Lo and behold, I read the cover and guess who works for Carat Industries?
Something a little more hard-hitting would've been nice.
NOTE: I could be wrong, but I think this is my first non-fiction book on the list (Yes, I read Night, but I guess I mean non-fiction in terms of "not telling any type of story".)
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