PopCo and the art of marketing
Going steadily around the office is a book some of you may already have read or heard of. It’s called PopCo and it was written by Scarlett Thomas.
PopCo isn’t a great book by any stretch of critical opinion. I’ll rephrase that: PopCo isn’t a great story. It is, however, a great book. Interesting and revealing, we have all so far been captured by its premise. The revelations on cryptography are enough to make you wish you paid more attention in Maths whilst the insights into the workings of the company are equally fascinating for anyone in the business of marketing.
It fails, to a certain extent, by nature of the plot being a bit, well, irrelevant. Certainly the end is rushed and not half as interesting as the rest of the book. Parts which ramble on about animal rights are mostly interesting but sound a little more like a hysterical student rather than, say, Peter Singer.
For anyone reading this blog it’s a book that will hold the interest and reward the time spent reading. It’s not without its naïvety and it won’t help you pass any exams but it will provoke debate on a number of levels.
i am currently reading this book and loving it. it is teaching me about the marketing world in a light hearted, fun way; about how exciting the world of marketing can be, but also that a person can be restricted when it comes to developing ideas for a company. would recommend it to anyone for an easy interesting read, and i like the idea of the book’s page edges being blue!
Scarlett Thomas is a don of cerebral chick-lit (you might also want to try The End of Mr Y). It did make me feel sad that I couldn’t quite understand the Monty Hall problem etc, but it’s a great reality check on the way most people see marketing…