John Grant has three manifestos

I first encountered John Grant via his first book - The New Marketing Manifesto. I bought a copy from Unity Books in Auckland's High Street - It was an impulse purchase, I confess - one of several (I like d the packaging - anyone who tels you you can't judge a book by its cover is sometimes wrong). I took my purchases to D72, a New York style deli cafe that was impossibly stylish on Freyberg square (now a Pumpkin Patch store - I guess impossibly cool tangerine orange banquettes don't pay enough bills). I ordered a long black coffee and a corned beef sandwich - you know the kind, about the same as an average family roast, thinly sliced and stacked on rye bread with pickles - skewered to hold it together in a tower that Norman Foster would be proud of.

I stayed just long enough to read the book from cover to cover. I was completely energised or innervated, hard to be sure which.

Mr Grant is a thinker and communicator of the highest order. I didn't 'buy' everything in the book. But agreeing isn't thinking. I never thought much of Britain's New Labour - Thatcher in drag - Grant's business helped position them for election.

After Image: Mind-altering Marketing came next and it. too, sparked a line of thought that contributed to my thinking about what I call Non-Fiction advertising.

Then the brilliant The Green Marketing Manifesto. If you are at all serious about sustainability, read this.

Now he has a new one and I can't wait to be over-stimulated: Brand Innovation Manifesto: How to Build Brands, Redefine Markets and Defy Conventions

Review follows

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