How To Become An Advertising Man

Confessions of an Advertising Man is the distillation of all the successful Ogilvy concepts, tactics and techniques that made this book an international bestseller. Regarded as the father of modern advertising, David Ogilvy created some of the most memorable advertising campaigns that set the standard for others to follow. Anyone aspiring to be a good manager in any kind of business should read this.

From Penguins to Paradise: My Life as an Advertising Man invites the reader to laugh at and learn about the ad industry in equal measure. It charts the career of a young advertising agency trainee, from his initial struggles as a trainee Account Executive to his appointment as Managing Director (Thailand), and eventually Senior Vice President (International). His insightful and often hilarious experiences range from the pitfalls of trying to make penguins perform for a TV commercial in London to the trials of opening some of the first Western agencies in Moscow and China. How do ad agencies work? How do you take the knowledge from London agencies and apply it in Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Brazil, while at the same time learning from these foreign cultures? And what is bachelor life really like in these far-away countries? All is revealed in this informative, light-hearted, and entertaining book.

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Frank Palmer is a legend in the Canadian advertising world. He not only developed Palmer Jarvis, one of the country’s most acclaimed marketing communications agencies (and then became chairman and CEO of DDB Canada after selling Palmer Jarvis to the multinational ad giant), he is also credited with changing the face of Canadian advertising. “He’s the only Western Canadian ad man who went to Toronto and wound up owning the town,” says former employee and now friendly rival Chris Staples. Fellow ad man Bob Bryant elaborates, “What Frank also did that no other agency owner was able to do was become a star. No one else personified a company the way he did. He became the iconic brand of his own business.” Palmer has earned a reputation for obtaining clients at any cost. He has clawed his way to prominence with wit, an uncanny knowledge of what constitutes effective advertising, and a business acumen nothing short of encyclopedic. Having started out as the boy last chosen for the baseball team by his peers, he set his sights on living his life in the role of the chooser—not the one waiting to be chosen. Palmer is a fascinating study in contrasts. Though he always took his role as an employer seriously, at times his private life was a mess. And while his bald head and thick neck give him the look of someone you wouldn’t want to encounter on a dark street, he’s a notorious trickster—be it by placing an octopus under a colleague’s pillow or lacing a friend’s coffee cup with dental anaesthesia. At the same time, Palmer is almost as well known for his philanthropic work as for his business acuity and practical jokes. In this lively biography, Robin Brunet captures the exhilarating experience of being in the presence of such a charismatic and driven man. Brunet’s wealth of interviews with the man himself and those who know him best get to the root of what it means to be Frank Palmer.

We live in an age of persuasion. Leaders and institutions of every kind--public and private, large and small--must compete in the marketplace of images and messages. This has been true since the advent of mass media, from broad circulation magazines and radio through the age of television and the internet. Yet there have been very few true geniuses at the art of mass persuasion in the last century. In public relations, Edward Bernays comes to mind. In advertising, most Hall-of-Famers--J. Walter Thomson, David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach, Bruce Barton, Ray Rubicam, and others--point to one individual as the "father" of modern advertising: Albert D. Lasker. And yet Lasker--unlike Bernays, Thomson, Ogilvy, and the others--remains an enigma. Now, Jeffrey Cruikshank and Arthur Schultz, having uncovered a treasure trove of Lasker's papers, have written a fascinating and revealing biography of one of the 20th century's most powerful, intriguing, and instructive figures. It is no exaggeration to say that Lasker created modern advertising. He was the first influential proponent of "reason why" advertising, a consumer-centered approach that skillfully melded form and content and a precursor to the "unique selling proposition" approach that today dominates the industry. More than that, he was a prominent political figure, champion of civil rights, man of extreme wealth and hobnobber with kings and maharajahs, as well as with the likes of Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt. He was also a deeply troubled man, who suffered mental collapses throughout his adult life, though was able fight through and continue his amazing creative and productive activities into later life. This is the story of a man who shaped an industry, and in many ways, shaped a century.