Advertising and Mad Men

I've been increasingly interested in advertising as of late - some of it may be from my recent obsession with the hit TV show 'Mad Men', nonetheless, it has something that has been with me for some time now.

Some personal history - I think psychology and human behavior is one of the most fascinating things on the planet. I used to want to get a doctorates and become a psychotherapist, but then I realized the main motivation behind this was money, and of course, once I realized this, I realized there are much quicker ways to getting to the money.

However, I still am infatuated with studying human behavior and finding out the simple things - why we do what we do, why we choose what we choose.

I know there are lot of recent ventures I have been involved in, many of which stem from my interest in the advertising and promotional business - as one may be able to tell from all of the promotional graphics I post on this blog - so it would be a waste of time to name all of them, so I'm going to end this post with an e-book I read this morning, it's really short and only about 75 pages long.

Fascinating read for anyone interested in human behavior, public relations, and of course, advertising:

http://www.hoffmanlewis.com/adcontrarian/The_Ad_Contrarian_eBook.pdf

I think my favorite quote is right at the beginning, talking about the "branding" philosophy -

"It's the Dennis Rodman school of marketing: if you don't have a personality, get some tattoos..."

"Brands need character, not tattoos."

Good stuff.