The Insanity of Advertising: Memoirs of a Mad Man

The Insanity of Advertising delivers a surprising, inside look at unbelievable and sometimes astonishing happenings in the ad business. Not tittle-tattle but real, absolutely truthful, on the ground intel from an executive who saw it all happening right before his eyes, from Madison Avenue to San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

These are the advertising people and their clients, at times crazy, some crazy all the time. There’s a week spent with John Wayne shooting commercials the Duke didn’t want to be shooting. The untold story behind Steve Jobs and the infamous “1984” Macintosh commercial that aired on the Super Bowl. What it was like working with Michael Dell as Dell Computers mushroomed from $100 million to $30+ billion.

The insights and anecdotes drawn from thirty years working with advertising legends like Jay Chiat and Lee Clow and entrepreneurs Larry Ellison, Les Crane, Don Kingsborough, Joseph E. Levine, and many others. It’s an entertaining and fun read, and along the way there are important lessons about the strategies and management in the ad biz — though it may be hard to believe that the business of advertising has survived and can still be called a business.