Book review: The Nature of Marketing, by Chuck Brymer (DDB): Marketing to the swarm and the herd

I get a lot of books in the mail, via my clients or (mostly) via networks on LinkedIn, Facebook, Friendfeed etc. Very few of them make it into my dead-tree-interfaced reading list (yes, it maybe that part of my problem is the 800+ RSS feeds I try to look at when I have a minute). But when the DDB people in NY send me their CEO Chuck Brymer's new book "The Nature of Marketing" I was quickly drawn into actually reading it all the way through (in pretty much one go, no less... perfect for that ZRG - SNG longhaul I went on a few weeks ago;), which by itself is a rare occasion.

I reckon that a lot of people at DDB have contributed to this book but mostly it is Chuck's enthusiasm for reinventing advertising that makes this book an inspiring read. Chuck, and DDB, is of course known for the Swarm Marketing concept (get the white paper here) which keeps popping up in this book, as well, but more importantly I really like all the various examples such as the Philips 'Simple Switch' campaign that are being presented throughout the book. Great food for thinking laterally!

I will be chewing on some of the ideas in this book for some time to come, but in the neantime here are 2 things I agree on, very much, and therefore want to share with you:

• The future will require connected agencies that are evolving from merely orchestrating campaigns to actually facilitating conversations
• Technology is now merely a commodity, and this is a social / cultural revolution, not a technological one

Making a long story short - this is a good read.

Related: my slideshow on the Future of Social Media, here

Disclosure: I have held various speeches and keynotes for DDB and TribalDDB in the past.