"GIF ME FIVE": Five book tips from industry insiders.
Frank Bodin, Chairman & CEO of Havas and President of ADC Switzerland
"The book I am recommending here is not a marketing book (as you know, I tend to recommend avoiding marketing books). The book is the novella Lea from Pascal Mercier, who was born in Bern and now lives in Berlin. His probably best known book is the Night Train to Lisbon. A wonderful person surprised me with this book pretty much a year ago. And the book itself is wonderful. The novella is about the relationship between a single father and his adolescent daughter, who is a great violin talent.The love between father and daughter and the love of music are the themes of this magnificently written book, which reads like a cleverly composed score. The scoring of the story is not symphonic, but more like the intimacy of chamber music. It's about the abysses in us humans. It is about passion, about destiny. It's about loneliness despite togetherness.Oh yes, storytelling is one of the marketing buzzwords of our time - if you want to get better at it: the story of Lea couldn't be told more grandly than Pascal Mercier does."
Torsten Tomczak, Professor of Marketing, University of St. Gallen, Institute for Customer Insight
"I recommend Punk Economy from Ernst Mohr. In his very clever book, the author - actually an economics professor, in fact a polymath - analyzes global competition from a variety of surprising perspectives. His central thesis: punk as a style has left its footprints in the consumer world. Punk economics is an economy in which style has become an economic commodity. Punk is synonymous with the fringe of society that produces styles consumed by the mainstream."
Manuel Nappo, Director Institute for Digital Business HWZ
"My tip: Start-up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. Almost every metropolis wants to claim the status of the next Silicon Valley - that's how desirable the title has become. But what if the model for Switzerland were a completely different one?"
Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute
"I have two recommendations: Killing Marketingis about how innovative companies are starting to transform their marketing departments from cost centers to profit centers. As more enterprises build loyal audiences by delivering consistent, valuable content, it opens up the opportunity to monetize those assets in new and compelling ways. My other book recommendation is The Four by Scott Galloway. Just reading the chapter on Amazon is alone worth the price of purchase."
Petra Dreyfus, CO-CEO/COO at Wirz BBDO
"We work in an environment that is developing at breakneck speed. That's why most books about creativity and digitization are already wastepaper before they've even been published. I rely on blogs and newsletters to keep me up to date. My three favorite blogs are all from AdAge. They are called Creativity Daily, Wake Up Call and AdAge Digital. They keep me informed with small, easy-to-digest, well-prepared morsels on a daily basis."*Beat Hürlimann is a consultant, journalist and specialist lecturer. With his company Hürlimann Creative Communications he supports clients in the areas of social media, digital marketing, digital advertising and corporate communications.
