Ladies Room: The Real Mad Men

As a member of the AdSoc Society at Bucks New Uni I have the opportunity to attend events at the University and hopefully some on location that deal with Advertising as an industry in various formats. 

The most recent event was having Andrew Cracknell author of 'The Real Mad Men: The Remarkable True Story of Madison Avenue's Golden Age come in and share his first hand knowledge of the industry in the infamous 'MadMen' era the 1960's, as well as highlighting key changing moments that occurred during that time.

Andrew Cracknell, Vic Davies, Jessica Wharton, Ian Adams, Hannah Meyer (me)

A common theme that was present during Andrew's talk is that time repeats itself. Many of the issues present in the book that occurred during the 1960's are happening again.

This struck me as shocking, why would that play into an advertising campaign? Surely the point was to send a message from the brand to the consumer, Andrew explained that during this revolutionary era of the industry ads were talking at consumers about brands. This was successful because not everyone had a dish washer, or microwave. Consumers were new to a lot of brands and their products. However, once everyone had such items including the flashy car how were brands going to be successful? 

Andrew described this realisation as talking to consumers about brands. By involving them in the process, by  being persuasive, providing simplicity, and showing the humanity of the brand. It's true and this creative uplift in the industry produced some of the most memorable advertisements, outline in 'The Real Madmen' book.

Even being as obvious as underlining the objectives of the ad, telling the consumer what they want and need.

When DDB came out with an award winning ad, stepping away from telling the consumer. But welcoming the idea of communication, that 'yes this is an ugly, small car we are not hiding anything'.

It was these ads that encouraged the growth of the American culture, by bringing a human element of honesty to the creative process of advertising. Stepping away from hand drawn pictures depicting the 'ideal' family and welcoming the honesty and personality of brands.

But how has this repeated in the 21st century. In my opinion, the introduction of digital has mirrored this. Ads use to tell you want you wanted to hear. However, the more and more digitally inclined brands become there also is less and less room for this and all the fancy copy to make the product even better then it is.

Brands need to be honest again, trust the consumer and trust themselves.