Nobody knows anything

Ask a classroom of children what they want to do when they grow up, and it's unlikely that many will say "advertising". Advertising is something most people drift into, like crime. It follows that there is little formal training – most of us learn on the job.

There are however lots of books for those who want to understand the craft. Books about copywriting and art direction, and even the dark arts of strategy. There are also books of general interest. Ogilvy on Advertising is the classic guide, though the advice it gives (such as "The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife") is now as dated as the misogyny in the quote. It was written in the era of Mad Men, after all.

A more up-to-date equivalent is Hegarty on Advertising, written by John Hegarty. He was responsible for groundbreaking campaigns in the 70s and 80s including the Audi "Vorsprung durch Technik" series and the Levi jeans commercials.

Life's favourite writer on advertising is Dave Trott, His books (including Creative Mischief, Predatory Thinking and One Plus One Equals Three) are full of common-sense parables expressed with haiku-like simplicity and conciseness.

For a US-centric view of what constitutes great advertising, and how difficult it is to create, we recommend Hey Whipple, Squeeze This by Luke Sullivan. Reading it will inspire anyone with the desire to do better work.

But the most instructive book for people involved in advertising is not about advertising at all. Adventures in the Screen Trade is, like it sounds, an insider's guide to Hollywood. It's written by William Goldman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter responsible for movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and A Bridge Too Far.

After a lifetime in the movie industry, Goldman decided to share the two chief things he had learned. The first was "Structure is everything". In a script, plot and character are important, but a strong storyline is what drives the movie forward. The same is true of advertisements. Without internal logic and a meaningful narrative, they will founder.

The second thing he shared was our all-time favourite piece of career advice: "Nobody knows anything". By this he didn't mean that the people who run Hollywood are stupid. He meant that despite all their years of experience in the film business, no-one knows with certainty how to create success. It is impossible to predict which movies will be hits and which will flop.

Film history is littered with surprise blockbusters, 'sleepers' that bomb when they are released but go on to become cult hits, and movies that are predicted to be sure-fire successes but tank inexplicably.

Because Hollywood doesn't learn from its failures, it tries to replicate its successes. When a movie does well, it is immediately followed up by sequels, prequels and spinoffs. But for every successful franchise like Star Wars or James Bond there are a host of failures that expire through the law of diminishing returns.

Because innovation is risky, big studios leave it to the small independents to try something new. But when a new movie or genre succeeds, they all jump on the bandwagon.

This uncomfortable truth also applies to advertising. In both fields of endeavour, success is dependent on human behaviour and personal taste, which are subjective and therefore difficult to analyse.

The business of advertising is also risk averse. We tend to repeat what worked last time. Ad testing favours concepts that look like their predecessors, so most campaigns end up looking the same.

The fact that success is unpredictable in advertising is a source of both frustration and fun. It's annoying that there is no magic formula we can apply to deliver success. But this provides the opportunity to create success from fresh ingredients every time we are faced with a blank sheet.