Phil Dusenberry explores this and more in Then We Set His Hair on Fire
Harish Bijoor
I have always believed insight is everything. Everybody looks, but few see. Insight is the stuff that is out there for all to see and use. Very few do though. Those who do flourish. Those who don’t fall by the wayside.
Phil Dusenberry is an advertising mind I have respected for decades. This is the guy who turned BBDO/New York into a creative powerhouse of no mean achievement. Jack Welch (with GE’s winning “We bring good things to life”), Ronald Reagan (for his unique 1984 re-election campaign), Fedex, Gillette and indeed New York city and its former mayor, the redoubtable Rudy Giuliani, will all testify to the power of insight-led work that Dusenberry and his team believe in.
When “Then We Set His Hair on Fire” hit the stands in late 2005, I was among the first to pick it up in New York City. I sat through with this book on a red-eye flight into London.
Wide-awake. The next leg of the flight from London to Mumbai, I re-read the book, this time with a pencil and note-book.
The book is rich. Rich in the discipline of insight. Sets right the tone, tenor and at times the haughtiness of the advertising person who believes in the “creative for the sake of creative” route. Dusenberry raps your knuckles and tells you the worth of insight-led advertising that actually works and delivers.
Read it. Read it for the discipline of insight-led work. Enrich your life.
The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consultants
(Coordinated by Pritha Mitra Dasgupta)
