jay/day

As if writing the new JC Penny commercials wasn't enough (see entry below), Ken found time between takes to write a book! It's about his years of experience writing commercials for Apple, but it's neither a tell-all or a bio.

Ken says ....

Insanely Simple is about Apple’s obsession with Simplicity.

You can see Simplicity in everything Apple does: the way it organizes, innovates and communicates. In fact, one could argue that it was Steve’s unrelenting passion for Simplicity that helped Apple rise from near-death in 1997 to become the most valuable company on Earth in 2011.

My observations come from over 12 years of experience as Steve’s agency creative director, from NeXT to Apple. Also relevant to my story are the years I spent on the agency team during John Sculley’s rule at Apple. And then I had some interesting (and often excruciating) experiences in the worlds of Dell, Intel and IBM — which made me even more conscious of what sets Apple apart.

To Steve Jobs, Simplicity was a religion. But it was also a weapon — one that he used to humble competitors once thought to be invincible.

You can buy it right now by pushing the button below. How simple!

Posted by alburty at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My goodness! Thank you so much for some generous donations from Nat Whitten and Fred Goldberg. I'm proud that the jayday community cares enough about the site to share the cost of its maintenance. You will see their names over there on the right side of this screen.

Nat is a gifted creative director and copywriter. He's also written several books of humor. "Secrets of the Superoptimist," "The Do-It-Yourself Constitutional Amendment Kit," and "The Book of Extremely Common Prayer." You can read all about them here.

As for Fred, he is a marketing and advertising consultant in the Bay Area, but for 10 years he was founder, Chairman, and CEO of Goldberg Moser O'Neill. And, of course, for eight years he was President of the San Francisco office of Chiat/Day San Francisco.

Posted by alburty at 04:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is said that every copywriter has an unpublished novel somewhere in their drawer or hard drive. Hillary Jordan, who worked as a copywriter in Venice (Nissan and Eveready, late 80s and early 90s) has not only published ONE book, but has now come out with another!

You can read all about them, including get information about her book tour, here.

They are also available on Amazon by clicking here.

Posted by alburty at 07:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Introducing a new jayday feature, in which I ask an alum who is still very much in the business to tell us what books we should all be reading.

Here's our first contribution, from former C/D senior account planner, Ted Nelson, who now runs his own strategic branding company called Mechanica.

Positioning - The Battle for Your Mind
-- Trout and Ries' seminal book on positioning.

Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick -- a book about the science of Chaos Theory, that really struck me as incredibly relevant to the modern day consumer marketing context.

Plenitude (culture by commotion)by Grant McCracken -- a brilliant book, by a cultural anthropologist dealing with the "Culture by commotion" that so defines today's consumers and segments.

Posted by alburty at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)