Non-FICTION / PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED
THE REAL MAD MEN
Written several years after my advertising career ended, I think researching this book was one of the high points of my life in advertising. It allowed me to spend hours in the company of the witty, generous-hearted and proud veterans of the New York advertising creative revolution – almost like being at an endless stand-up comedy show.
The Real Mad Men covers that creative revolution, that magical side of 1960s New York advertising when the ads switched from shouty, didactic tedium to witty, intelligent, highly original little gems, much appreciated by the public. I already knew a lot of the story and the work and agencies involved. In London at my first agency, CDP, we watched closely in admiration everything going on in New York advertising and regularly screened the latest reels and ads from their very best agencies. I even knew a few of the personalities – Jerry Dellafemina, for example, with whom I’d once collaborated on a pitch to Holiday Inn for their worldwide account.
The book wasn’t actually my idea. I was commissioned to write it by Sylvia Langford of Elwin Street Productions, who put me together with art director Simon Daley, and sold it to Quercus for UK publication in 2011, and Running Press in the USA for the following year.
After its release I gave more than 100 talks on the subject, illustrated with ads from the period, to agencies and art colleges (and 3 law firms!) as far apart as Oslo, New York and Belgrade. Most had little idea such a rich trove of work existed.
It isn’t the first book to examine the subject but others have tended to concentrate on the work and not necessarily the views and lives of the people who created it – and while all describe what happened, few examine why.
Although the paperback is out of print, second-hand copies are around. The US hardback – an elegant edition – is still available (as of July 2026).