A couple weeks ago we ran a marketing book giveaway.

It seems it was quite popular because we received 17 entries, all of them worthy. But of course there can only be one winner.

Choosing the winner was difficult. Now we’re bound to say that, aren’t we? But it really was because we had to choose between an entry that totally ruled our head, and another that pulled at the old heart strings.

In the end we couldn’t/didn’t want to choose between them, so we convinced the generous folks at publishers OUP to send a free book to both of them.

The ‘head‘ entry (which you can see at the bottom of this post) was from Simon Kendrick, a commercial research consultant with UK commercial broadcaster ITV. Simon blogs and previously came to our attention for his comprehensive updates from the recent Research 2008 conference. We asked him for a short bio…

Upon leaving university, I did the apparently normal thing of looking for a job that had nothing to do with my degree. As I studied philosophy, politics and economics this was three times as difficult, but I have managed to dig out a niche for myself within media research. After several enjoyable years learning the tricks of the trade at the agency side, I have now crossed over to the client side. Stationed in the commercial sector of the business, I use a mixture of industry currency, desk research and commissioned projects to make the case for advertisers and agencies to work closely with us.

The ‘heart‘ entry read thus:

Here in South Africa text books are insanely expensive: the exchange rate, together with high import taxes, make purchasing text books onerous. My students and clients both look forward to anecdotal instances to bring the theory to life. I am sure that this would help.

It was from Michele Sohn…

Michele started Grey Matter, one of South Africa’s first new media companies, which she successfully sold to i-africa.com. She now heads up Confluence
Digital Research and holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MBA from Wits Business School. She lectures at Wits Plus and the IMM.

We hope this gift will, in some small way, do some good.

So well done to both of you - your books are on the way (one of which has been signed by the authors because we only expected one winner!). We look forward to Simon’s blog review of the book which we’ll link to once it’s done.

Simon’s creative entry…

I would benefit from getting the book because

• I am an advertising researcher. I look for inspiration and tips from all quarters in order to improve the effectiveness of my work
• I have aspirations to move to a more marketing-orientated role. This book would complement the “on-the-job” training roles I am undertaking
• I am a voracious reader, but have trouble splitting by time between online and offline. This is long enough to keep me offline for some time, thus protecting my eyes
• Being as my “TV” is in fact a “pc”, I would be sure to use the DVD regularly
• My partner is a student. By giving me study notes, you would help me empathise with her

Yourselves and OUP would benefit because

• I would write a very nice post on my blog about you
• I would tell all the people I work with about the nice people you donated the book. About 5,000 people work in the same organisation as me within the UK…
• I would also make the book and DVD available for them to read, thus spreading the love [ed: book does not include DVD]
• I live in London and you will save money on shipping
• I studied and lived in Oxford for 3 years. You would be giving back to the local community as well as the “online community”

There we go - two sets of 5 reasons. We are well matched.

I realise this hasn’t been particularly creative so I will donate a marketing idea of my own: challenge the public to successfully remove the title from the business book section in Blackwells/Borders/Waterstones et al, and place it in the women’s glossy magazine section. Photographic evidence should be provided, with the winner receiving an appropriate prize. This will not only create buzz but create sympathy for both the bookshelf-stackers and security guards- two oft-overlooked contributors to society. [ed: we do not condone such rebellious ideas]

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