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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This was the first book I ever read on computer and, July 21, 2011
This review is from: Confessions of a Mad Man (Kindle Edition)
was prepared to dislike it even though the price is the lowest I have paid for a book since Amboy Dukes. I was prepared to dislike it because its title is so derivative (which is to say somebody else is using it). But the author produces the best advertising blog, one of the few that doesn't bubble over with bloggorrhea or self-congratulation and the book is really an uncondensed, unvarnished version of that blog. He captures the period (1960s to 1980s in the advertising business) perfectly and demonstrates that the business prior to public offerings, mergers, consolidation, media buying separated from the creative and production of work, quarterly statements, worldwide pitches run by new business consultants was, if not better, at least one in which the largesse which now goes into management fees to senescent HQs used to go into perfectly shaken martinis, bonuses for the proletariat, and suites with turn down service for the traveling copywriters. If the author seeks absolution through his Confessions, this reader has a perfect penance: three Our Fathers and three Beefeater Martinis with a twist shaken to cold perfection.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Douchenozzles Beware, August 5, 2011
This review is from: Confessions of a Mad Man (Kindle Edition)
George Parker has a lived a Hemingway-like life in Advertising. He even looks like the guy, from the grizzled beard right on down to the even more grizzled liver.
So it's nice to hear that there was a time when life in Advertising wasn't always about wage freezes and downsizing.
"Confessions" is about a lot of things: It's about breaking into the business. It's about surviving the business. And it's about finding a way to get the hell out of the business. It's also about the most enjoyable book you'll ever read on the subject.
The thing that makes this book so much fun to read is George himself. He's the first to admit the advertising business has, and never has had much integrity. No, what gets his goat is that money-grubbing holding companies have ransacked the very industry that allowed him, nay, paid him dearly to booze, womanize, travel -- and when he wasn't doing that -- create great advertising for a living.
George also takes no prisoners. His assault on a business that has been pillaged by rich and greedy bean counters who have more in common with flesh eating bacteria than they do with actual humans is a thing of beauty.
At the same time, George's sympathies for the Creatives that are sacrificed by gross mismanagement and narcissism are real. And he's genuinely sad that they will never have the outrageous (and oft times illicit) experiences that he had coming up through the ranks. That's the softer side of George -- if calling the Chairman of one of advertising's largest holding companies, The Poisoned Dwarf, can be considered soft.
All in all, this is a great, entertaining read for anyone in the industry or outside. Oh, and if by chance you find yourself skewered in this book, my advice is to just suck it up and move on. There's no insult or profanity you can hurl at him that he hasn't at some point already hurled at himself -- and more colorfully, I might add.
Confessions of a Mad Man
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
USP's, BDA's, and The Poisoned Dwarf ... an advertising primer for the curious, August 11, 2011
This review is from: Confessions of a Mad Man (Kindle Edition)
George Parker is many things to many people: seasoned copywriter, advertising survivor, blogger...
but in this book, he is a storyteller, and not one of the Aesops Fables 'alls well that ends well' variety. This is more like Phillip K Dick storytelling ...
bad people doing bad things storytelling, the kind that rivets you to your seat, book, Kindle, iPad - whatever - firmly gripped in sweaty hands.
But he tells this tale with such ease and humor that it makes the advertising world seem like a fun place to be. And that's where he gets you ...
amidst all the romping across the globe to shoot spots for bidet cleansers, late night bull session carousing, and exacerbating round table campaign meetings, he carefully delivers the point:
it's a hard way to make a living, populated by an interesting assortment of characters, most of them rather incompetent yet powerful, and you.
A thoroughly enjoyable read for practitioner or apprentice alike, I'll close with 3 good reasons to read this book:
1: He's been there
2: He's done that
3: He's lived to tell the tale accurately and amusingly ...
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