Life in the Advertising World

Having experienced the ups and downs of the advertising world during much of my career, I was recently intrigued by the book Adland, by James Othmer.  Anyone who has lived through the fun, fast-paced, never-dull, stressful, late night and weekend advertising roller-coaster can likely identify with Othmer's description of his career in New York advertising agencies. If anything, you know you're not alone in the craziness and quirkiness of this business.

It certainly reminded me of some of the lowlights of my ad career:

• The time the head of the Sales Promotion department became ill the night before a big presentation to a Philadelphia agency that our agency was buying and I was asked to give the presentation in his stead...never mind that I knew nothing about Sales Promotion nor what he really did.
• When dining with my new boss in a major hotel client's fine dining restaurant in Boston (and hoping to make a good impression), they were doing everything to impress us. However, I had THE WORST migraine of my life, became physically ill, and left her to be wined and dined alone. My cab driver to Logan Airport the next day soon learned how ill I still was...
• Presenting a new corporate identity and branding campaign to a regional bank client's VP of Marketing...and working through options for every conceivable touchpoint from logos to ATMS to the president's business card...and getting positive feedback and direction from our day to day client, only to have the President of the bank decide to mostly stick with their existing look (with a slight adaptation of our recommended logo). Of course, typically, we were unable to present our options to the ultimate decision maker to explain the thinking and rationale. 

But that's the ad game...

Crazy things happen to you in your line of work?  

I discovered Othmer's Adland at my local library but it's currently available on Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble.