Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-279) and index. Introduction: Firing Blanks -- 1. No Room for the Mouse: The Failure to Involve Consumers in Advertising Communication -- 2. Silent Partners: Account Planning and the New Consumer Alliance -- 3. The Blind Leading the Bland: Advertising Follows Research ... in the Wrong Direction -- 4. Peeling the Onion: Uncovering the Truth and Stimulating Creative Ideas through Research -- 5. The Fisherman's Guide: The Importance of Creative Briefing -- 6. Ten Housewives in Des Moines: The Perils of Researching Rough Creative Ideas -- 7. Serendipity: "got milk?" Account planning exists for the sole purpose of creating advertising that truly connects with consumers. While many in the industry are still dissecting consumer behavior, extrapolating demographic trends, developing complex behavioral models, and measuring Pavlovian salivary responses, Steel advocates an approach to consumer research that is based on simplicity, common sense, and creativity - an approach that gains access to consumers' hearts and minds, develops ongoing relationships with them, and, most important, embraces them as partners in the process of developing advertising. Steel describes how successful account planners work in partnership with clients, consumers, and agency creatives. He criticizes research practices that, far from creating relationships, drive a wedge between agencies and the people they aim to persuade; he suggests new ways of approaching research to cut through the BS and get people to show their true selves; and he shows how the right research, when translated into a motivating and inspiring brief, can be the catalyst for great creative ideas.