Over at FusionBrand, Nick Wreden reviews Asian Branding, a book by Ian Batey, creator of the Singapore Girl advertising. Whatever you think of it, it is one of those very rare campaigns that has endured, having been around for 30 years.

I liked the story of how Batey won the account in the first place, on the strength of a track record as... a failed restauranteur.

The board of directors asked him: “You have never run a business before, so why should we trust you to competently run our large, complex advertising business across continents?”

“I was stumped. I didn’t have a rational answer,” he writes. “As a kind of knee-jerk reaction I blurted out, ‘Just give me a 12-month contract and if I don’t perform to your satisfaction in that time, I’ll rebate you all the commission that I’ve earned from the airline.’”

Batey got the business. And he admits that “even today, I still shake my head in awe at the guts of those 1972 airline decision-makers who entrusted a tiny team of youngsters to crusade their global advertising battle, rather than taking the safe route with a large, experienced world agency."

Nick obviously loves this book and resonates with its theme of great things to come from the Asian nations. I was also interested in his one caveat:

the book is flawed by an unapologetic yearning for the days when creative giants like Ogilvy, Burnett and Bane walked the earth and CEOs bowed low before the god of “great advertising.” Success, in his mind, are “reliant on the sharpness of an advertiser’s 3Fs: the game is Fast track, Flexibility and Flair.” What about customer relationships, sustainability or, heaven forbid, profitability?

I agree, the advertising-led days are behind us. I think it's often the case that people can be hugely effective and successful yet not quite articulate the reasons for their success or give a true guide to anyone following in their stead. And I love the way Batey won the Singapore account; business success is not really the dead logical process it is sometimes presented as.