The 15 Most Important Marketing Strategy Thinkers Today, Ranked By Influence

The 15 Most Important Marketing Strategy Thinkers Today, Ranked By Influence:from War Room by Jim Edwards

Marketing and advertising aren't known as a thinking person's profession, but the business actually requires more thought than most. It must marry creativity to return-on-investment, ideas to results, and art to commerce.

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That challenge is more difficult than it looks: Every ad, every line of copy, every image gets measured in terms of impressions, viewers and sales made. It doesn't matter how beautiful or innovative your work is, because advertising is quantitative: If it doesn't get results then it isn't creative.
Oddly, many marketer are pretty bad at describing the thinking behind their work. Ads speak for themselves, of course. But ask an adman or woman to explain how they do what they do, and you're likely to get some Powerpoint mumbo-jumbo in response.
Thinking about marketing — and being able to express those thoughts clearly, as a strategy that others can learn from — is therefore a real talent.
Those who can do it become sought-after speakers, writers and conference guests. Unfortunately, some of advertising's most influential thought-leaders of all time are dead: David Ogilvy, for instance ("the consumer is not a moron, she is your wife") and Rosser Reeves, who invented the concept of the "unique selling proposition."
So we decided to rank adland's current intellectuals based on influence among their peers. These are the most influential thinkers in advertising alive today.

15. Luke Sullivan, Chair of Advertising, Savannah College of Art & Design

For years, Sullivan was a respected creative director at WestWayne and GSD&M. But in 1998 he published "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This," a memoir/ diatribe/instructional book for budding copywriters. The title referred to his hatred of the character in the Charmin ads.
Suddenly, the book became compulsory reading for every advertising school student, and a generation of creatives has grown up with "Hey Whipple" in its back pocket. (Sample line: "Drop the whole thing and go do something else while your subconscious mind works on the problem.")
Now he's the chair of the Advertising Department at Savannah College of Art and Design.

14. Naomi Klein, author

Klein's 2000 book "No Logo" was something of a watershed in the advertising world. Its premise, that branding had become so universal it qualified as a form of global oppression, was the most successful full-frontal attack on advertising since Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders" in 1957.
Her ideas were examined closely by those in the business (Nike even issued a point-by-point response to the book), who loathed her opinion but enjoyed the attention she paid them.
Although Klein's star in the ad biz has waned in recent years, many of her ideas were made concrete in the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

13. Al Reis, consultant

The concept of "positioning" in marketing is so commonplace today that no one thinks about it. But like a lot of obvious ideas, they only become obvious years after they were discovered or invented.
Al Ries and Jack Trout coined the term "positioning" and in 1980 published "Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind." It defined positioning as "an organized system for finding a window in the mind. It is based on the concept that communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstances."
Reis maintains a consultancy with his daughter, Laura.



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