Blink. Don’t think.

Read. This. Book. It’s called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. (Yes, The Tipping Point guy.) Props to Zeke for pointing it out and making me get it. If you’re in marketing, advertising and design, you owe it to yourself to get a copy as well. Even if you’re not in the biz, read it anyway. I see a lot of advertising blogs with the usual lists of ad books, and this should definitely be among those too.

Thin-slicing. Intuitive repulsion. Adaptive unconscious.

Those are just some of the terms thrown about in this insightful book. A cool look at not just how, but why we react to anything as quickly as we do. Meetings. Confrontations. Surveys. All that. You could write a quick review for this book that says it’s about always ‘trusting your initial gut feeling’ and how you really shouldn’t ‘judge a book by it’s cover.’ And you wouldn’t be wrong.

But it goes well beyond those things though and breaks down exactly why it’s more than experience we rely on to sum up something and react instantaneously – and why we are right most of the time.

He also goes beyond our industry and covers all aspects of life, from why musicians fail to why Amadou Dialo was shot 41 times. But for the marketing junkies, fear not. He covers consumers and focus groups just as thoroughly. The interesting thing about the book is that all this stuff relates to each other.

(The section on how soda taste testing results are skewed is worth the price alone. As is the section that explains why certain people can’t help but make safe choices no matter what.)

So hard sell over. Check it out when you have a chance.

Tags: advertising, Blink, brands, viral, Malcolm Gladwell