Alex Bogusky and John Winsor wrote "Baked In: Creating Products and Businesses that Market Themselves". The book is a skin-deep advice column on melding product development with marketing — a common practice these days — that doesn't give away any secrets (probably) because A) Bogusky wants his agency to continue being a leader and B)Winsor just opened his own shop and needs to keep some stuff to himself. The L.A. Times review took advantage of that (whether they know it or not, but come one), and in doing so wrote one of the more entertaining-yet-inept reviews we've read to date.

I'm not an ad guy, but I've picked up a few things about the theory of this business, which doesn't mean anything. Regardless, from where I'm sitting, the review took easy potshots at what is an otherwise adequate perspective on how to do this. Like 'em or not, it's the guys behind Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and there's no arguing their success.

Some of the finer points from today's review, and some remarks from yours truly:

— "Running at a mere 150 pages of big type, the book is the ad guys' parochial perspective on why advertising and marketing so often fall flat. Surprise — they say it's not the ad guys' fault." (no they don't — they say what you all know: some products don't sell, and there's nothing advertising can do about it. It can be read a few pages at a time.)

— "The authors are certainly talented fellows. Bogusky is co-chairman of Crispin Porter & Bogusky, one of the world's most innovative companies, according to "Fast Company" magazine." (Wow, that story's about a year-and-a-half old. A quick Google search returns not-so-nice Gawker reports and, gasp, Fast Company, meaning Dan Neil probably did like 15 seconds of research and knows less about advertising than I do. Oh wait, he used to write about auto advertising, in 1991, for The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina — a hotbed of advertising prowess at a time of no-interwebs.)

— "First, the 'baked in' metaphor is obscenely cliched — right up there with 'new paradigm' and 'leverage' — and not particularly revealing." (True, truer, truest. But "Create Your Product Marketing When at the Same Time You Develop Said Product" is a shitty title, no? Also, the Times use the phrase 'half-baked' right there in the headline.)

— "...the authors propose a time when consumers will be able to design their own running shoe, drop off the plan at the local 3-D printer, lace 'em up and go. Except that running shoes are highly technical objects that draw on esoteric fields of biomechanics and materials science." (Have you ever sat through a marketing proposal that includes statistics on user-interface paradigms and gender marketing by socio-economic breakdown? Advertising isn't biomechanics, but it's not 1+1=2, either. An Arnell press conference is equally confounding.)

— "The notion that industrial design and advertising/marketing are somehow equal in terms of time, effort, resources, allotment of genius. They are not. It's far easier to craft marketing to fit the product than to craft product to fit somebody's idea of good marketing. To suggest otherwise seems arrogant and naive." (Key point, Neil is right that it's 'far easier' to do marketing after the fact. What he misses is that 99 times out of 100, he ignores advertising. We all do. Maybe the book sucks, but at least it makes an inroad at doing something different, which CP+B and V&S are a testament to, regardless of how good anyone thinks they are.)

— "All of these are good suggestions, and all of them could be found in an employee handbook from Procter & Gamble in 1955." (Ouch)

OK so Bogusky and Winsor have been knocked down a peg or two. Most of the reporting we've seen on this review is from people who don't seem to have read it, and just highlights the negativity. At this very moment sitting on my desk are titles from the likes of Linda Kaplan Thaler, Jay Williams, James Othmer, Steve Hall, Luke Sullivan and Robin Koval. None of them is particularly ground breaking, but what they most definitely do provide is insight into the brains of people whose names are recognizable.

Sullivan, for one, has made a name for himself with "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This" (the first ad book I read, not including like a thousand CAs). And then of course there's countless others out there. The point is, no one in advertising is capable of writing its Bible (which Neil seems to have been expecting) because it changes too much. Take 'Baked-In' for what it is — insights from two guys with the creative chops to write a book. And take Neil's review for what it is — a dying title's attempt at bankrolling traffic from a name they know will get attention.

More: "'Baked In' Theory Discussed by Samsung Marketing SVP"