Publisher's Synopsis
Madison Avenue U.S.A. is a reporter's portrayal of the advertising world and the creative and business minds that have shaped it. A best seller when it was first published in 1958, Martin Mayer's book is the result of hundreds of interviews with the greatest talents in the industry--among them advertising giants Bill Bernbach, James Webb Young, David Ogilvy and Rosser Reeves. Mr. Mayer highlights classic campaigns and the agencies that created them, capturing the excitement, the frenzy and the long hours of work behind original print and broadcast ads. He also reveals the workings of the industry--the money spent (and often wasted) on creative and media, the thinking behind marketing decisions, the controversy involved in building new business and the fierce competition between agencies. A new introduction by the author tells of the impact the book made when it was first published and looks at changes that have transformed the advertising industry since then. How leading figures in advertising welcomed Madison Avenue U.S.A.: "This book will put the cat among the pigeons. I read it in three hours, before breakfast this morning, on the way from Chicago. It reports what is really happening in most of the top agencies today--with blazing indiscretion and uncanny accuracy" -- David Ogilvy Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, Inc. "It is a remarkable achievement for an outsider to have gotten and presented as clear a picture of the workings of any business as Mr. Mayer has of this one." -- James Webb Young J. Walter Thompson, Inc. "The book is, of course, fascinating. It does for the 'Madison Avenue' of the Eisenhower Age much what the Canterbury Tales did for Southern England of the late Middle Ages." -- Richardson Wood Former Managing Editor of Fortune Martin Prager Mayer is a widely published and distinguished writer and journalist. His works include Wall Street: Men and Money, New Breed on Wall Street and Today and Tomorrow in America.
