The first thing that impressed me about Alexander Bogusky’s new book was its size, a sleek 152 pages. There was no risk of droning. Just enough content to make some key observations and then wrap it up. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the mind behind the subservient chicken for burger King or the Endangered Man for MAXIM Magazine or the Whadafuxup anti-smoking campaigns. A how-to-make-great-ads book? That territory had been done to death, and seemed kind of unoriginal for arguably one of the most original practitioners of advertising of the last decade.

Baked-In is a business book that happens to be written by a creative guy, whose secret to great creative may be, according to the book, Bogusky’s involvement in the business of his clients beyond making ads. Bogusky talks about a 3D printer that CP+B owns. It actually prints 3D prototypes of products, like sunglasses. He never mentions printing sandwiches for lunch, but he does go on to describe how much branding has changed radically since 2001. And if you’re just figuring that out now, well, you’re way late.

The big parity brand approach is dying. Take Starbuck’s as a modern marketing example. They sold themselves on the basis of their store experience alone, without advertising (they still do very little advertising). Going into Starbucks and buying a coffee is the product and it sells itself every time someone goes in, buys a coffee and tells their friends to do the same. The marketing and the product are fused together, baked in, as it were, the main point and title of the book. Products that are baked in sell themselves, which of course is ideal and saves money on fancy advertising agencies.

There’s also a handy 28 Rules Section for baking, with titles like Culture Trumps Influencers, meaning experts are interesting, but culture tells you what is really happening. And Knock Down the Walls, a nod to silo busting, bring disciplines closer together so that all marketing efforts buys into the same idea.

Everything mentioned in the book, seems perfectly reasonable in today’s new ad culture of social marketing, transparency and blogospheres, but clients are still stubborn and stuck in their own comfort zones. So in a way, the book is a kind of renegade manifesto for people who would attempt to make change and bring clients kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The aughts may be over, but some clients, in spite of their Twitter feeds and Facebook Fan pages, may still be hopelessly stuck in the 80s. We’ll see where these clumsy behemoths end up in 10 years.