• The Tennessean, Monday, June 27, 2011 9:45 AM

Paul Jankowski, a Nashville-based advertising consultant, has a new book on building brands in the heartland of America. Tennessean columnist Randy McClain says the book "plays a bit too obviously on the theme of how insensitive Big Media have become to real people with real values."

How to Speak American: Building Brands in the New Heartland argues -- per McClain -- that small-town America isn't out of touch but big-city ad agencies are. "It's populated by honest, hard-working Americans with money to spend who don't like being talked down to by the companies selling them cereal, real estate or cars." The book contends that "heartland consumers enjoy country music, for example, but they don't appreciate TV commercials that toss in a gratuitous fiddle at the end of a 30-second soundtrack and insist that gives the spot a down-home flair," writes McClain.

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