Disclaimer: I was sent this book free of charge and asked whether I would consider reviewing it. I have no incentive to give it a glowing review. What follows is my honest opinion of the book.

Intro

Following on my theme of reading and learning about non-traditional content marketing, (last time I read and reviewed Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday), I have finished reading How Calm Whipped Up a Storm by Peter Freedman, so here is a very short review.

The Calm App

I'm surprised by how many people don't know of the Calm app but that is perfectly fine. Calm is a wellbeing app initially created by Michael Acton Smith and Alex Tew (Million Dollar Homepage) back in 2012. It contains guided meditations and sleep stories. Personally, I have only ever used it to play ambient/sleep music/noises when trying to sleep or concentrate.

Apparently during its early years, there were many similar wellbeing apps competing for attention and users. What Calm did to acquire both is fascinating.

Calm Public Relations Marketing

This book was written by PR consultant Peter Freedman, who did extensive PR work for the Calm app in the early days and could be said to be responsible for the significant success Calm had in not only differentiating itself from its competitors but re-writing the book on public relations and attention marketing.

Traditional Marketing

His initial premise in the book (something I am hearing increasingly) is that traditional marketing is not only expensive, but delivering reducing returns in investment. This is due to a number of factors.. the reduction in traditional channels (printed material, radio, even TV), peoples reducing attention spans and increasing ability to ignore ads. In many ways it is harder than ever to get peoples attention.

"Content marketing is the only form of marketing left." - Seth Godin

Especially if you only employ traditional methods which were designed for a different time.

"..whereas non traditional PR has a journalistic mindset, traditional PR has at its worst, a corporate mindset and vibe."

" At its worst, when you have noting genuinely new and interesting to share, traditional PR becomes the kind of self-absorbed, self serving corporate guff and puff that gives PR a bad name""

Ideas & Creativity

It is clear that Peter holds ideas in very high regard, claiming them to be the raw materials for creativity in his line of work. He likes to surround himself with people that can come up with ideas. With the more the better. "Prolific beats perfect", mentioning that you have to place plenty of bets and throw a lot of spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.

"Creativity is one of the last remaining legal ways of gaining an unfair advantage over the competition." - Ed McCabe

Betting on a few ideas (or few big campaigns) is risky as you only need a few to miss to be in trouble. His approach instead is to take lots of swings; you wont always have hits but you want to aim for a decent batting average of success.

He calls this "the Picasso Principle"- where artists don't always produce masterpieces but by being prolific they increase the likelihood of doing so.

"Quantity has a quality of its own." - Attributed to Stalin

Another make or break factor Peter found was the final decision makers appetite and attitude towards risk and new ideas. Where Peter has been most successful is where his clients have just understood his approach and ideally given him a lot of rope, whereas difficulties arose when the traditional long tenure, conservative, steadfast executives "just didn't get it" or pushed back on his PR ideas.

There must be some tolerance for failure and ability to learn from it for future success.

Peter discusses each of his golden rules in dedicated chapters. While I wont try to summarise all of them, I will pick out my main takeaways.

1. There are two kinds of PR - and you need to do both.
2. Lighten up. Silly PR is better than serious PR.
3. "If there is no excitement ready-made, some must be manufactured."
4. Creativity gives you more buzz for your buck
5. "These days only two things win attention: Celebrities and Weird"
6. The best form of PR is content marketing - and the best form of content marketing is guerilla content marketing.
7. The never-ending launch: one lightning bolt is not enough; you need rolling thunder.
8. Names matter: a snappy name can add huge value.
9. Think Anglosphere from day one.
10. Join the cultural conversation - with reactive, opportunistic, newsjacking ideas

Examples of PR Campaigns

Some of the examples he quoted where my most favourite parts of the book. Oddly, I had never heard of them.. but perhaps I am not the target audience/wasn't using Calm years ago when a lot of them happened?

Baa Baa Land - A tongue in cheek reference to La La Land, was an 8 hour video of sheep in a field with no dialogue or narrative pitched as the "dullest movie ever made". Which not only had more people than anticipated appearing at its live premiere. But went on to a great deal of international media coverage.

But Seriously, The Rules of Tennis - A sleep story by John McEnroe where he would read out the rules of tennis.

The Joy of Painting - A sleep story by Bob Ross. Bob Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was a much loved painter in the 1980's who would televise live painting with a slow, pleasant and calming voice. Calm got permission to re-use and re-purpose previous recordings for a sleep story.

The Rules of Cricket - A sleep story read which included the rules of Cricket by Cricket commentator Henry Blofeld.

The Lost Grimm Fairy Tale - Calm used AI to create a new fairy tale in the style of the Brothers Grimm and used it as a sleep story. (An interesting use of AI a few years ago).

I wont list ALL of the case studies or projects mentioned in the book, but these give you a flavour of the ideas Peter worked with.

Main Takeaways

• Always be launching. I've heard this elsewhere but it makes sense. You need to continually be promoting your product & service. Not just at launch.
• You're only as good as the ideas the client will greenlight
• Don't be so serious - Playfulness wins attention
• The best marketing is content marketing - The best content marketing is interesting content.

Summary

I found this short book genuinely enjoyable. Largely because it shares my own opinions and experiences around marketing and ideation in everywhere from startups to SME's to corporate behemoths which be summarised by one of my favourite sayings.

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."

Personally, I found there to be a little bit of odd repetition in the book i.e. there would be several paragraphs in the main prose describing a case study, then immediately a separate section describing the case study again. I think this could have been tightened up with a bit more editing. This was only a minor observation and doesn't detract from the overall teachings and impact of the book.

Would I recommend the book? Yes

Would I buy the book if it wasn't gifted to me? As I develop a lot of web sites, mobile apps, AI programs and XR apps that I need to get the "word out" about and spread awareness of, on little or no budget. Yes, absolutely. I'll add every tool I can get to my low/no-budget marketing toolbelt.

If you like books like this or similar..

I'll be adding this book to my all time favourite book list and assign it an appropriate rank, and if you are looking for your next read, check out GoodBusinessBooks.com.

-- Lee