I should've spent a bit more time researching the person I was to meet in Paris during "
The Tour"- but being frazzled and preparing for it all ...
The gentleman was
Mark Tungate - and somehow or other I'd 'won' a copy of his book
ADLAND. And I wanted it. I'm a sucker for any sort of history of advertising (as attendees of my presentations know, for I make them suffer through my own skewed, polemical version of it).
He was ready to send a copy - but I proposed a counteroffer: let's meet in Paris and
exchange books.
I got the better deal.
Mark Tungate, I find out after our brief rendezvous at
Bayard Presse, after returning home and reading his book, after jumping on the web and scurrying around, after emailing a few friends in France and England, is a heavyweight in the ad world. He's written
a bunch of books, loads of
articles for advertising and general interest magazines, has a TV talk show. He puts together the text for an
'everybody in the industry has to pour over it every year' annual overview of European advertising.
When we met, I had
just finished a presentation, was tired, dizzy from adrenaline de-rush, and fumbling around. My more-significant-than-I-am other was with us and, I could tell, became more and more annoyed that I wasn't paying attention. She's smarter than I.
ADLAND: A Global History of Advertising is a worthy successor to my favorite history of advertising tome,
The Mirror Makers by Stephen Fox. And, as the title says, it's not U.S. myopic.
What did I know already while reading
ADLAND? Most of the U.S. stuff, maybe a little less than half of the U.K. stuff, a smidgeon about France, a dollop about Italy
(actually more, since I worked on
an Italian brand for a few years and had done some research), zip about Japan (except that
Dentsu has a big building and they love to fly over American movie stars and pay them an absurd amount of money to hold up bottles of whatever - although according to Mark that silliness has run its course), zip about Spain, a little about Brazil and South America. I knew a lot but also learned a lot about the 1990s creative revolution in Amsterdam.
Then there is the obvious:
Mark Tungate is an accomplished writer - so here's a
business/history book wonderfully conceived and composed and fun to read. How often do you find that to be true?
Likewise no surprise to me:
ADLAND has been selected as
a classroom resource by The Advertising Educational Foundation. Which means that that Tungate has joined the advertising book-writing immortals such as Lawrence, Dusenberry, Fallon, Roberts, Nyren …..
??? Who??? What the **** is he doing on that list?The company keeps getting better.
Update:
Listen to Mark's interview on The Advertising Show (scroll to the sound files)
ENCORE LEADERSHIP INTERVIEW: David Galenson on Old Masters and Young Geniuses
I blogged about this book over a year ago. It parallels much of what I say in my not-so-brief A Brief History of Advertising Creatives section I usually include in my presentations. Most people are shocked when I explain to them (with loads of examples) that many, many of the great creatives did their best work later in life."No, I don't think a 68-year-old copywriter can write with the kids. That he's as creative. That he's as fresh. But he may be a better surgeon. His ad may not be quite as fresh and glowing as the Madison Ave. fraternity would like to see it be, and yet he might write an ad that will produce five times the sales. And that's the name of the game, isn't it?"
