Simon’s post on Logorama and Alan’s on Nike reminded me of a wonderful little book by the Australian author Max Berry (which was titled “Logoland” in Italy and Germany but was titled “Jennifer Government” in many other countries) and is a brand cynic’s dream.

It is set in an alternative future where the government has less power but brands significantly more. In fact everyone is now known by the brand they work for hence the main characters are Hack Nike, John Nike and Jennifer Government.

The story revolves around Hack who is a low level but ambitious employee of Nike. To try and gain promotion he allows himself  to be contracted by one of his higher ups, John Nike, who has the glamorous job of Vice President of Guerrilla Marketing, for an ambitious but highly dubious marketing campaign. John and his team are planning to release the new Nike Mercury trainers – which will sell for thousands of dollars but cost pennies to manufacture - and in order to try and drum up the necessary desire for the shoes, John Nike plans to increase “street cred” in the worst way possible: by having Hack kill people who try to buy them.

Hack, bound by his contract and desire for promotion but unable to contemplate murder on his own, subcontracts to the Police, now a mercenary organization, beginning a chain of business transactions which could land Nike in hot water should word of the plot leak.

After several children are murdered at various Nike chains on opening day, agent Jennifer Government takes it upon herself to track down the perpetrators, even if she can’t get the funding for it…

Enjoy!

I’ve just finished reading Steve Toltz’s novel “A Fraction of the Whole”. Near the end there is a line which for me is a perfect example of smarter marketing…

“no-one would buy life insurance if it was called death insurance”

With Dan Brown riding high in the bestsellers list again, I was reminded of a great book I read a while ago – The Marketing Code by Stephen Brown. I would recommend it to any marketer for light bedtime or holiday reading, as it has all of the  pace of the Dan Brown book but much more wit.

As the blurb on the back says:

“Death stalks the streets of Edinburgh as marketing lecturer Simon Magill receives a gruesome message about a mysterious website. He is plunged into a marketing maelstrom that sweeps from the glitz of Las Vegas to the grime of West Belfast, taking in the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, the conspiracies surrounding the sinking of the Titanic and, not least, the insidious marketing campaign behind Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel, The Da Vinci Code”.

Enjoy!