AMC’s Mad Men has succeeded in garnering critical acclaim thanks to good writing, acting, and production. If you’ve followed the show into the 7th and now 8th week, you’re one of the millions who either side with Peter Campbell’s all-or-nothing rise to the top attitude (god, he’s a snake) or adore Don Draper’s Machiavellian approach to business (I wish he was my boss). And what’s not to like about Roger Sterling, who has J. Peterman good looks minus the childlike personality. Despite the martinis and expense accounts that allow the Sterling Cooper executives to lavish themselves with frills, things are getting serious and stress has ensued. Problems erupt on the home front when the wives question their husbands’ loyalty, and consider flirting around themselves. Soon, a fresh presidential candidate (Nixon) could become a big ticket client for the firm. But what, if anything, will we learn about the creative revolution from this show?
Thus far, Mad Men has wowed me with its interwoven narratives,
multi-layered themes, and representation of the 60s. But all of this happens
against the backdrop of advertising, media, and art directors. The creative
revolution has been relegated to set dressing. I get the impression that the
production team pays more attention to the actors’ hair than the brutal work that
goes on in writer’s row or over the art tables. Mad Men shows you enough about the people and players, but what about the work they do? If anything, Mad Men enlivened my curiosity, but since falling asleep during episode 3, I decided to curl up with some books on Thursday nights instead. I’ve read the following each week thereafter.
John Gunther’s tale of Albert D. Lasker, Taken at the Flood, is a
sympathetic biography that chronicles a man possessed with succeeding at
everything. Starting in the 1890s and moving into the 20th Century, you learn
about Lasker the ambitious reporter, who pulled stunts like posing as a telegram
delivery boy in order to land interviews. His passion for getting the story and
understanding people enabled him to land enormous accounts when he worked for
Lord & Thomas advertising. Not only was Lasker a media maverick for his
product comparisons and use of celebrity endorsements, but at one time he owned
the Chicago Cubs. He partnered with William Wrigley Jr. and suggested that the
baking soda / bubble gum tycoon paste his name on the ballpark. How’s that for
sponsorship? Lasker also had a hand in politics doing campaign duties for Warren
Harding in the 1920 election. He lived and worked before the Mad Men-era 1960s,
and established many tried and true advertising methods that folks from that era
would master themselves. And if you want to learn about the revolutionary steps
advertisers took with cigarettes, flip to chapter 10 to read about the
motivation behind Lasker slogans such as “Cigarettes Are Kind to Your Throat” or
“I Protect My Precious Voice with Lucky Strikes.” Let’s not overlook the fact
that Lasker snatched up Raymond Loewy to design the Lucky packaging.
If Taken at the Flood illustrates an advertising maverick setting the
standard up to WWII, George Lois’ tale continues the story through the 1950s and
60s—what he labels as the creative revolution. George, Be Careful: A Greek
Florist’s Kid in the Roughhouse World of Advertising depicts the rise of
George Lois from his days with CBS to Doyle Dane Bernbach, and then onto his own
studio. Lois and Bill Pitts do one thing well—they retain your attention. I read
the book in one night, and it’s not just because I share George’s Greek
sentiments, but mostly because it’s a good story. Would you ever jump out a
window in order to protect your work? Defend your design? Lois nearly did, or at
least, made it look like he was going to. For Goodman’s matzos, George’s account
executive failed to convince the company’s stakeholders that an ad using Hebrew
would sell matzos. After the company officers told him to get off the ledge and
they’d run the ad, he tauted, “You make the matzos, I’ll make the ads.” I wonder
if the account executives suicide attempt would have gotten the same result.
Hell, maybe the matzo executives would have let him jump out the window and
splat on the pavement. Many artists and designers possess the “I don’t take any
crap” attitude, but to Lois it’s as much about taking pride in the work as
demanding respect. In George, Be Careful, the work and the man appear
larger than life.
Like a good cookbook, my copy of Confessions of an Advertising Man by
David Ogilvy has Post-It flags sticking out from dozens of pages. Ogilvy wrote
it like a recipe for a succulent meal and that’s because at the Hotel Majestic
in Paris, Ogilvy had Chef Pitard as a mentor, who inspired “white-hot morale.”
Pitard’s hands-on management style taught Ogilvy that no matter what level you
work at in an organization, you must work in the pits from time to time. For
Pitard, that meant planning the menu. Ordering the goods and produce. And
cooking too. For Ogilvy, it meant administrating an agency, managing clients,
and writing copy from time to time. Amongst a handful of small- to medium-sized
agencies I’ve had the pleasure of working with, all the principals have read
Ogilvy’s book. All of them have told me to read it, and finally I’ve gotten a
chance to. If Lois gives a personal history of the creative revolution peppered
with well told drama, Ogilvy’s chapter titles and content sound like a step by step for starting your own agency: How to Get Clients, How to Keep Clients, How to Build Great Campaigns, How to Write Potent Copy, and so on. This all may sound like an Andrew Carnegie How to Win Friends & Influence People type of book. And it is. There are principles that Ogilvy subscribed to, and in
truth, I’ve put some of them into practice over the past four weeks when it
comes to developing new clients. And they work. No kidding.
Having read the above titles, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. I
plan to hunt down James Webb Young’s The Diary of an Ad Men next, but
will hit the library instead of paying the $299 for a used copy. When choosing
between watching Mad Men on Thursday nights or reading about the issues
and influences of practitioners from that era, I feel like the books will always
be better. And as always, I look forward to getting recommendations from our
Speak Up readers.
Great post, Jason. Mad Men is indeed a must-watch, and it's nice to get some good leads on context.
On Sep.06.2007 at 08:53 PM