From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor - Jerry Della Femina [0]
One guy said, “Well, what are we going to do about Panasonic?” And everybody sat around, frowning and thinking about Panasonic.
Finally, I decided, what the hell, I’ll throw a line to loosen them up – I mean, they were paying me $50,000 a year plus a $5,000-a-year expense account, and I thought they deserved something for all this bread. So I said, “Hey, I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” Everybody jumped. Then I got very dramatic, really setting them up.
“I see a headline, yes, I see this headline.”
“What is it?” they yelled.
“I see it all now,” I said, “I see an entire campaign built around this headline.” They all were looking at me now. “The headline is, the headline is: From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor.”
Complete silence. Dead silence …’
This book is dedicated to the dedicated: Ally, Bernbach, Burnett, Calet, Case, Dunst, Durfee, Frankfurt, Gage, Goldschmidt, Harper, Hirsch, Karsch, Kurnit, Lois, McCabe, Moss, Paccione, Raboy, Rosenfeld, Travisano, Wells and all the others.
Author’s Note
The advertising business is, if nothing else, highly volatile. Factual references, billings, account affiliations at agencies and other similar details are accurate, to the best of our knowledge, as of October 1, 1969. Undoubtedly, accounts will move and billings will change between the time this book goes into production and publication day. If there are any such errors, the author and editor regret them. One final note: To protect the innocent and guilty alike, a few pseudonyms have been used in the book, but 9944/100 per cent of the names, agencies and situations described are real.
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
One Nazis Don’t Take Away Accounts
Two Who Killed Speedy Alka-Seltzer?
Three Fear, Son of Fear, and Fear Meets Abbott and Costello
Four Give Me Your Drunks, Your Weirdos …
Five Dancing in the Dark
Six The Creative Life
Seven The Jolly Green Giant and Other Stories
Eight Fights Headaches Three Ways
Nine Fights Headaches Four Ways
Ten Censorship
Eleven Rumors and Pitches
Twelve Profiles in Warm and Humane Courage
Thirteen The Most Fun You Can Have With Your Clothes On
Copyright
‘The original Mad Men are all dead. Ironically, they died from consuming the products they sold with such gusto. Their lungs went from the cigarettes they advertised – and smoked by the carton. Their livers melted from all the scotch, gin and vodka they made famous – and the three-martini lunches they enjoyed in the process …’
The original Mad Men are all dead.
Ironically, they died from consuming the products they sold with such gusto. Their lungs went from the cigarettes they advertised – and smoked by the carton. Their livers melted from all the scotch, gin and vodka they made famous – and the three-martini lunches they enjoyed in the process.
I wrote From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Pearl Harbor in 1970. What you are about to read is a candid, inside look at a wild period in business, a new era of Mad Men that we will never again see.
I came into the advertising business in 1952 at the age of sixteen, as a delivery boy for a stuffy, old-line advertising agency named Ruthrauff & Ryan, which could have served as the setting for the Mad Men television series without moving a desk. Needless to say, it was a difficult business to break into, especially for a teenager with a limited education.
In 1956, I took my portfolio of sample creative work to J. Walter Thompson, the world’s largest advertising agency. They had a position open for a junior writer of sales promotion on the Ford Truck account. At that time Ford was J. Walter Thompson’s largest account.
The copy chief on the account