Tom Fishburne—marketer, blogger, cartoonist extraordinaire—just published his new book of cartoons called, This One Time at Brand Camp. I've been a long-time fan of Tom's cartoons (I've had the volume fairy cartoon taped to my wall for a couple of years), so I was excited to get my hands on the book and start reading.
Unlike most of the "serious" books I've read and profiled here, Tom takes a decidedly more humorous look at the things that marketers and clients think and do. He is very good at spotting the absurd, silly things that we all see (and shake our heads at) on a daily basis.
Each page features a cartoon plus the story behind its creation, which gives the reader a nice look into Tom's thought process as he created the panel. It's a great book and worth a look: buy the book here.
Tom was kind enough to give me two copies of his book. I can really only use one, so I'm giving the second copy away. Want me to send it to you? Leave a comment about the most absurd/silly marketing moment from your career. I'll choose a winner from the list sometime next week. Who knows, maybe Tom will do a cartoon of your experience?
Read more about Tom and his book in these places:
Brand Autopsy Blog
Back of the Napkin Blog
Church of the Customer Blog
The Marketing Fresh Peel Blog
And of course, you can read Tom's blog here.
In working with our privacy lawyers, we came to a point where they were pushing to require us to include a pre-checked box on our website during the check out process for people to receive our newsletter. We did not want to have the checkbox, we just wanted to send them the newsletter. It was a grueling, hours-long conversation.
Finally I suggested, "What if we include a checkbox like you suggest, but just make the box an image of a checkbox rather than an actual clickable box? That's a win-win!"
Needless to say, I was met with silence and disgust from the lawyers, but my boss and I both had a good laugh about it.
Posted by: Jonathan | September 19, 2008 at 11:02 PM