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Book review: Adland

September 29, 2007 at 8:07 by Martina Comments

I never studied advertising at university, and even if I did, I think nobody would have told me the history of the agencies who made the history of advertising. I’m not even sure there is a school book telling the history of this fascinating world. So I was very interested when Kogan Page sent me a copy of “Adland – a global history of advertising” written by Mark Tungate, a journalist and a copywriter I indirectly know through my friends in Diesel. It’s a great reading, a book to sip a chapter a day, with no hurry.
It tells the story of the men (and a few women) who created the great agencies we all know about, from J. Walter Thompson to BBDO, Publicis, Ogilvy and BBH (just to name a few). And the story is told after an impressive research and with a real passion that involves us in the reading that pictures the human side of a business worth US$400 billion a year worldwide.


A part from the feeling of getting “behind the scenes” of the history of advertising, what I really appreciated is the international perspective of the book. Even if I recognize that US and UK definitely had (and maybe still have) a crucial and leading role in making the history of the advertising business, there else and more to the discover and explore. This is the approach I always try to have writing Adverblog, therefore finding references to Brazil, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain (again, just to name a few) really made happy and increased even more my appreciation of AdLand. It’s a book to have (and read :-) and even a good present for a friend who is approaching or already living in the advertising world.

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4 Responses to Book review: Adland

  1. Dan Schawbel says:

    Thanks for sharing this. It’s hard to appreciate what we have today without examining the past.

  2. Heath Row says:

    Adland has been sitting on the top of my reading pile since I got a copy… your review has inspired me to start reading it sooner than later — thanks!

  3. Dave Weller says:

    Is Sam Delaney son of one of the London advertising Delaneys of Tim, Greg, Paul,and Barry?

  4. Alastair Mills says:

    Yep - he sure is.

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