Ogilvy on Advertising. It's the Kernighan and Ritchie / TAOCP of advertising.

http://www.amazon.com/Ogilvy-Advertising-David/dp/039472903X...

David Ogilvy came up with a lot of the ideas, terminology and concepts of modern ad compaigns. He's also the one who said "The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife." - a truth that technical people are often slower to pick up than the rest of the population.

And this gem: "Always hold your sales meetings in rooms too small for the audience, even if it means holding them in the WC. 'Standing room only' creates an atmosphere of success, as in theatres and restaurants, while a half-empty auditorium smells of failure."

Ogilvy also coined a hundred slogans you know - 'only Dove is one quarter moisturizing cream'. His surname's already in your spell checker.

If you're interested in examples of inspiring communication created by advertising experts, check our Paul Arden's works, such as 'It's not how good you are , it's how good you want to be'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ogilvy

Thank you for the thoughtful response; I will definitely check it out. Ironically (or probably not), that's also the first book that pops up when you do an Amazon search for "advertising".

I got a lot out of Claude Hopkins' writings. He was one of the earliest pioneers of modern ads (turn of the 20th century), but when you read about how he meticulously tested his campaigns, it's as if he had the internet in mind. It's not the contemporary textbook you're asking for, but sometimes I think the classics have more valuable information in them. His stuff is also highly readable because it's full of good stories.

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Advertising-Scientific-Classics-L...

Appreciate it. The recent HN submission of Gladwell's 96 article on the scientific study of consumer shopping patterns is what prompted this post. It sounds like this guy used similarly meticulous methods.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is a classic. So is Scientific Advertising.

What kind of advertising? Traditional media or web-based?

I had in mind traditional as I think there is a lot that can also be applied to the web. That being said, the end goal is to apply what I learn to the web.

i like trout for older products / media and godin for newer