Can’t Sell Won’t Sell: Advertising, Politics and Culture Wars. Why Adland Has Stopped Selling and Started Saving the World by Steve Harrison

About the Book

Our politics dictate the ads we create and distance us from our audience. The advertising industry has lost interest in selling. According to the IPA, we face “a crisis of effectiveness.” And our politics are to blame.

We are now so culturally left-leaning, we’re no longer willing to stoke capitalism’s engine of growth. Instead, we have a new raison d’etre: we’re saving the world.

But who are the activists and careerists who are pushing this progressive agenda? And what of the angry mainstream who are alienated by the ideas we’re imposing upon them?

Most urgently, as our clients emerge from the pandemic recession, will advertising rediscover its commercial purpose and help them revive the UK economy?

Or will our agencies and institutions double down on social purpose and the monoculture that’s suffocating a once brilliantly creative industry and forcing it to the margins of British business and cultural life?

About the Author

According to Wikipedia, “Steve Harrison is a British copywriter, creative director and author who is regarded by Campaign Magazine as the greatest Direct Marketing Creative of his generation. He has won more Cannes Lions awards than any other Creative Director in the World.”

Steve Harrison was European Creative Director (OgilvyOne) and Global Creative Director (Wunderman) on either side of starting his own agency, Harrison Troughton Wunderman (HTW).

He has also authored Changing the World Is the Only Fit Work for a Grown Man; How to Write Better Copy; and How to Do Better Creative Work.

And, interesting fact – he has a doctorate in American history!

Listen to the Interview…

Links…

• Can’t Sell Won’t Sell: Advertising, Politics and Culture Wars. Why Adland Has Stopped Selling and Started Saving the World by Steve Harrison (Amazon)
• Steve Harrison (LinkedIn)
• Steve Harrison (Twitter)
• Mark Ritson (website)
• Bob Hoffman (website)
• Can Liberal-Leaning Ad Agencies Effectively Sell To Conservative Consumers? (Will Burns, Forbes, November 11, 2016)
• “Cannes Conflicted” by Patrick Collister
• The Undefeated Marketing System: How to Grow Your Business and Build Your Audience Using the Secret Formula That Elects Presidents by Phillip Stutts (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
• Andrew Tenzer and Ian Murray (whitepapers)
• Is There Any Hope For Advertising? By Howard Gossage
• The Book of Gossage by Howard Luck Gossage, Jeff Goodby, and Bruce Bendinger
• Orlando Wood – System 1
• Lemon. How The Advertising Brain Turned Sour by Orlando Wood
• Look Out. An Advertising Guide for a World That’s Turning Inwards by Orlando Wood

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