This week, I discuss my annual list of favourite marketing books.

We'll look at a new book, titled, Mad Women, written by an original Mad Woman from the 60s era Madison Avenue. Next, we flip through the pages of another new book by one of the most outspoken and notorious Mad Men of all time - George Lois - whose no-holds barred book of advice will certainly ruffle some feathers. Simon Sinek's book, Start With Why, argues that most companies don't know WHY their in business, and will not succeed as a result. Lastly, we discuss a book by Steven Johnson that looks at where good ideas come from.

Pour a cup of coffee and join us.

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This week, we explore when companies apologize.

Over the lifetime of a company, mistakes happen. When those mistakes cause damage, it is not inappropriate for a brand to apologize. Yet, it rarely happens. This week, we look at the companies that chose to apologize: From O.B. Tampons, who apologized to their customers with a song, to Dominos Pizza, who was forced to apologize when employees made an embarrassing YouTube video, to Maple Leaf Foods, whose CEO apologized to the families of people who had died from contaminated food. If an apology is genuine and timely, sorry is definitely the smartest word.

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This is my annual celebration of the brands I envy.

They aren't necessarily the most hip or most current. They don't even have to be a product or service, it could be a location, a person or an animal. But they must be unique, revolutionary or counter-intuitive. And they must have survived. This year, I tip my hat to a street that symbolizes glamour, a company that helps people move their lives, a city that became known as the mecca for country music, a company that created an empire out of leftovers, and an athlete who overcame a raging temper to become the most calm, revered champion in his sport.

See all the visual elements that complement this week's episode below:

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In the world of marketing, the use of colour is a studied science.

Colours play a bigger role in your purchasing decisions than you may think, because colours have a secret language. A colour can make you feel a certain way about a company, or it can trigger a specific desire. A simple change in colours can affect the sales of a product immediately, or a certain colour can make us seem more desirable to the opposite sex. Colours can even encourage us to spend money - or even gamble.

Join us this week as we explore the way colours make us buy. See all the visual elements that complement this week's episode below:

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Hyper-Targeting is the next frontier in 21st century marketing.

Marketers are gleaning and buying more and more personal information about consumers. That information is then being used to track people online, as marketers watch their buying habits. As a result, advertisers are "hyper-targeting" consumers with ads that are tailor-made for individuals, featuring the products they want, when they want them, at a price based on their spending ability, at the precise moment they are about to make a choice. How do you like your ad - over easy or sunny-side up?

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This week, we explore whether sex really does sell.

Woodbury's used sex to sell soap as far back the 1920s - and the campaign was written by a woman. But the use of sex has always been a polarizing technique. We'll explore how Calvin Klein built an empire on sex, how Abercrombie & Fitch revived a dying brand with sex, how an erectile dysfunction commercial generated the most complaints of the year in Australia, and we'll look at the fascinating story of a beer company that used sex to sell its product, and was sued by its own female employees.

Does sex sell? Let's find out.

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This week, we explore ads that caused problems by over-performing.

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This episode looks at the wacky world of advertising mascots.

The ad industry has a long history with mascots, as they are some of the most enduring advertising symbols of all time. As a matter of fact, mascots have outlived most other advertising campaigns. The Jolly Green Giant just turned 84, for example. But this episode is about the modern mascots of advertising. In many ways, they resemble the mascots of the past, each created to personify the essence of the product. But they contain differences, too, mostly in the great strides technology now offers. We'll look at the E*Trade talking baby mascot, the Coke Polar Bears, the Great A&W Root Bear, and of course, the Energizer Bunny, who keeps on going and going and going...

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This episode is about how some major brands in our lives simply vanish.

One of magician Harry Houdini's most famous tricks was to make a 5-ton elephant disappear in front of large audiences. Marketing has its own version of that trick - when big brands vanish into thin air. Like auto brands Oldsmobile and Pontiac, now both gone. Big retail brands like Woolworth's and Eaton's, both no more. And a big brokerage house, once the second largest in the United States, E.F. Hutton, now just a historical footnote. Each was an elephant in their respective categories, all now gone and vanished.

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This week, we explore how brands get trapped by their own image.

Every once in a while, expensive brand images circle around to bite the brand. Like Apple, which recently acted completely out of character when an iPhone prototype was found in a bar. Sometimes, a brand image can actually kill a brand. Like Pets.com, which created an image it couldn't deliver on. Or the diet suppressant called Ayds, which found itself trapped inside a 40-year old brand image when AIDS the disease began its devastation. Or the Hummer, which went out of business when its gas guzzling image ran smack into an era of soaring gas prices and climate concerns.

Then there's the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel in Amsterdam - the worst hotel in the world, with the worst brand image - and they like it that way.

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