My Resolve.

Every New Year, I go through the same rigmarole of coming up with personal resolutions. Ones that will get me out of bad habits and into good ones. Finding one that will stick is the tricky part. I’m reminded of past resolutions all the time, whether it’s the 24-hour workout key fob that hangs lifeless on my key ring or the nicotine gum packets that sit adjacent to my cigarettes.

This year, I opted for a more vague resolution, one that won’t define me or have me scratching to get out the box I walled myself in. This year I resolve to be a better human being. When I told my wife this, she said, “nice cop-out.” Like most times (read: all the time), she’s right.

So, I’ve decided throughout the year to add more definition to the resolution. For the sake of this post, we’ll call them “projects.” My first project is a re-education of sorts. My goal will be to read and/or re-read 52 books that pertain to advertising/marketing—one book per week for the remainder of the year. I’m calling this project, “52in52.”

1/52 — Ogilvy On Advertising by David Ogilvy

First off, if this book isn’t in your possession, then get it, read it, and disregard the remainder of this post. If you do, in fact, have this book and it’s sitting on your shelf like some status symbol, but hasn’t been read let alone touched, revered, highlighted, coffee stained, dog eared, or beat to all hell and is just collecting dust, then you should resign your position immediately for you don’t belong in this business.

The inside flap describes the book as “a candid and indispensable primer on all aspects of advertising.”  I re-read this book every year, and every year something new rings out to me. I love looking at what I’ve highlighted from year’s past as well as the notes I’ve written in the margins. This year the one quote that rang truest to me was, “the consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.”

Ogilvy On Advertising is more than just one man’s account of his life in advertising; it’s like reading Michelangelo’s take on art between sculpting David and painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

 → Patrick Kearns, Creative Director, AREA203 Digital; follow… @noeyeinpirate