I mentioned about Adland in a previous post. I finished reading this book today and was a little disappointed with the final few chapters. Those chapters felt a little rushed and it seemed to me that Mark Tungate was trying to squeeze as much information in as few words as possible. There wasn’t enough background and history for the Japanese company, Dentsu, or for the Latin American/Hispanic companies. Maybe there really wasn’t that much information to extract about those companies, but the book was really imbalanced with European companies. I guess it is true that a lot of the best advertising comes from Great Britain, or France, or the US, but it would have been nice to have a more “global feel” to the book. I also felt a little disappointed that there wasn’t enough information at all about the Thai advertising agencies–Tungate really could have expanded upon that section a lot more.
But I can’t complain really–the book provided me some insight into the world that I am interested in entering. It gave me more references to look up, more books to read. At least now I realize what I had been missing in my schooling for the past few months–history! I still don’t understand why my school never taught us any history of advertising or any of the marketing sectors for that matter.
One reply on “Thoughts on Adland”
Hello. I’m Mark Tungate, the author of the book Adland. My editor drew my attention to your review. It’s very nice of you to read my book and mention it on your blog. I accept your criticism regarding Thai and Latin advertising, but I feel you are a little unfair about my coverage of Dentsu. I flew to Tokyo at my own expense and spent several days at Dentsu, working with and interviewing the top management there. I also devoted several pages to the history of the agency (but perhaps you missed those during your speed reading?). Writing an entire history of advertising was an enormous task that took more than two years, as well as trips to London, New York, Chicago, Milan and Shanghai and interviews with more than 100 advertising executives. I pledge to make it to Bangkok and Buenos Aires for the next edition. In the meantime, there’s clearly a gap in the market for a book purely about Asian advertising. If you feel like writing one, I promise to buy it when it comes out. Cheers. Mark