Creative Leaps 10 lessons in effective advertising inspired at Saatchi & Saatchi By Michael Newman Published by John Wiley & Sons Not everybody will find Creative Leaps appealing - but for those involved in the advertising/marketing industry or just plain interested in a behind-the-scenes look at advertising in Australasia, it's worth a look. Author Michael Newman, one of Australia's leading advertising figures, was for five years executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi in Sydney, where he won a swag of awards for his work, including a coveted Canne Lion - the advertising world's equivalent of an Oscar. Despite Newman's affiliation with Saatchi & Saatchi, he assures us the book is not about the agency. 'It is about some of the advertising lessons I learnt there, but the origins and applications of these lessons are broader than any single agency,' he writes in the introduction. 'This text is written for the modern student of advertising - or, indeed, anyone interested in seeing an improvement in the brandscape - who wishes to glean some clues about how to proceed in today's complex marketing environment, where ever in the world you work . . . [whether] East or West, client or creative, big business or small.' Newman uses advertising campaigns and quotes industry experts and former clients to make his point, as well as publishing picture sequences of various ads from the region. These include Toyota's well-known brick outhouse ad, an amusing Head & Shoulders shampoo ad promising no more flakes (using breakfast cereal cornflakes to push the point home) and the Oil of Olay SPF15 campaign. 'The advertising process is extremely onerous. An idea for a genuine client that survives the process actually has many midwives and foster parents, from many different levels. Creative leaps are not just about the creative department,' he says. 'Not everybody understands this. To the outsider, advertising looks easy.' But according to Newman, today's advertisers and marketers face the most hostile, least gullible, most savvy, least patient customers since the dawn of Time magazine. 'Increasing numbers of people see advertising as pollution of the most pervasive kind,' he writes. Interestingly, Newman says it has been calculated that one-third of the world's wealth is located in people's heads - as brands. But then we are taken back to reality with a thud: 'Perhaps the most quoted, but least observed, 'fact' about advertising is that, each day, each one of us is the hapless target of between 1,600 and 3,000 ads, plus countless non-advertising commercial messages.' felicity.glover@scmp.com