Customer Reviews

Confessions of a Mad Man

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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.

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

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 ...

George Parker, one of the few surviving original "Mad Men", tells us everything there is to know about the advertising business in the 60s and 70s and what went wrong from the 80s onwards.

The reader is being treated to `The most expensive TV shoot in the history of advertising', awkward clients, old heroes like David Ogilvy and Howard Gossage as well as fabulous restaurants in Europe and the States - George Parker has seen it all, he was there when it happened.

There are many books about advertising around and this won't be the last, but it is certainly one of the best. Whoever is interested in the golden era of advertising (and doesn't mind a few expletives on the way) should read this book.

George Parker has been in the advertising business a long time. He was part of the British Golden Days, The Mad Madison Avenue years, and even got out to Silicon Valley to weigh in on the internet tsunami that over took the communications world. This man has been around! He also apparently paid attention to the changes that were taking place around him as the big fish, ate the middle sized fish, that ate the small fishies and was not shy to point out the end product that naturally results from all that eating. While his dislikes are many and names are named, his anger is not misplaced. For those of us who have worked in or around the business of advertising all of our lives and loved it, times have indeed changed, people have been forced out, eager young social media savants have taken their place and...well it's the same thing that happens everywhere if something is going to survive. It evolved. George's book should be read by anyone who lived through these changes over the past 40 years not simply for nostalgia but for empathy. It should also be read by those internet/techie/newbies who are looking not for a big idea, but to create an interactive, total experience between the consumer and his toilet tissue. Mostly, its interesting to see how this business started as the wild, wild west and how time, money and stockholders tamed it.

I'm not in advertising. In fact I'm about as far away from the field as possible (aside from watching Madmen).

This book is funny. Really funny. If half of what George Parker wrote is true he is a case study in balls and chutzpah with dashes of brilliance. The whole story on the Agency Fireman... I can't tell you how many times I've told that to other people who loved hearing it.

His writing style is breezy and easy to read. Has a sort of dashed off quality to it. Highly recommended for those who are outside the industry and looking for some good escapist non-fiction... as well as a crash course on creative tla's and new words like douchenozzle.

Im no princess. And Ive certainly been told my share of war stories from veteran ad folks. So I was skeptical as to what Mr Parker could unveil that would keep me tuned in to his new book. He fesses up to a high degree of fancy debauchery that could have only happened in the glossy days of the business. But what really got me hooked is his exceptional insight into agency politics and his highlights of the real movers and shakers of the time. As someone coming up in the business, it helped me understand a lot about advertising's big picture. Its educational - and as any adscam reader will expect, very entertaining. A good taking.

People in advertising love to make sweeping statements about the business.

Legendary creative director Phil Dusenberry, for example, once said, "Advertising is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes."

Another ad man, Jerry Della Femina (AKA Jerry Della Charisma), is famed for saying, "Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on."

Someone considerably less famous than either one of them - that would be me - once said, "Advertising is the toy department of the business world."

To see why all three of these statements are true, there's no better evidence than George Parker's new book about his life in advertising during its glory years.

I can't vouch for the veracity of George's tales. Was he the boozing, snorting, shagging, swash-buckling character he says he was? Maybe, maybe not.

As I read the book, to be honest, it didn't really matter to me that he might have fudged the facts here and there.

First, it's his story, so, as he would emphatically remind me, you or anyone else who raises the issue, he can tell the tale any way he wants.

Second, George's portrayal of an ad man's life in the 60's, 70's and 80's, including all or most of the over-the-top excesses he relates, is completely plausible to anyone who was there.

Advertising was different then and infinitely better, as George makes perfectly clear throughout the book, particularly when he lobs his verbal grenades at today's BDAs, BDCs and BDHCs.

I've often said that no one really needs to write another book about advertising. That said, George's book is a good, entertaining story well worth the five bucks it costs.

Five stars even though it's filled with typos, misspellings, etc.

First, I have a confession to make. Not owning a Kindle or Ipad (I gave mine away in a contest for one of my own books), I had to borrow a friend's Kindle and read George's book.

I consider Parker's previous book, "The Ubiquitous Persuaders" a must read for any fan or hater of advertising. So much so, I wrote a review of it on my blog: I'd put Persuaders up there with any ad-related book out there. For all the vitriol on his popular blog, Adscam: The Horror!, George Parker knows of what he speaks. Unbeholden to any advertising entity, Parker writes quite freely, much to the chagrin of all of us who are.

"Confessions of a Mad Man" is a naughtier more fun version of that book. And that's saying something. His 'how it was and what it's like now' transcends mere cautionary tale because it's so damn entertaining. The expense accounts, the debauchery and the unmitigated sense of entitlement predominant in Adland goes down like unpaid-for Glenlivet at the Four Seasons Bar.

Amazon once featured "The Ubiquitous Persuaders" in a pairing with my book, "The Happy Soul Industry." I can only hope they do the same with "confessions of a Mad Man." Meantime, I'll buy a copy (I promise!) as soon as George publishes a paper version or when I get an Ipad again, whichever comes first.

I am only 15 pages into this confessional and I am already sold. So, if this was an ad ,you got me. I'm hooked. As an Art Director, I hate the excessive use of words. In this case, I've found much love in each syllable. Thank God and Kate.