Did Boston have Mad Men, too?

A friend recently asked me to give my impressions of Mad Men since I was in the advertising business for so long. I can't recall if I already wrote something similar, but if I did I can't find it, so here goes. For starters I got into advertising in 1966, a bit later than Mad Men. I also worked in Boston, which wasn't as glamorous as being on New York's Madison Avenue. Overall, I think the show rings very true, though I don't recall that much in-office drinking, nor any exec with a visible bar. Mostly it was a celebratory open the liquor cabinet event. Almost everybody smoked, of course, even though we never had a tobacco account like Sterling-Cooper. In the agencies I worked for, notably Ingall's, there was no one brilliant guru like Don Draper, but many talented copywriters and art directors. Each would have his or her down periods and moments of glory. (Mine, oddly enough, was a textbook concept for Zayre.) While Mad Men shows the glamor of coming up with a new campaign or slogan, they don't show the day-to-day drudgery of endless radio spots, retail ads, and tiresome brochures. I didn't find my male co-workers quite as juvenile and sex-starved as those on Mad Men, or perhaps I didn't notice. There were several Peter Campbell's that were very hard to read and as many Roger Sterlings who hit the bars right after work. (One arrogant and alcoholic AE sadly went from managing a major account to being a bag boy at a supermarket only blocks from the agency.) The best thing about being a creative in an advertising agency was that there was no strict dress code and lunch hours were wide open. (Ah, to have the money I spent at Lananas, Top of the Hub, Jimmy's Harborside, Pier 4, and Joseph's.) Back then we writers wrote more from the heart and our own observations than from some dictated demographic profile, which is why ads were better then. Was there a lot of professional jealousy? Probably. But not as much as I see on Mad Men. I would guess that every agency I worked for had, at some point, a Joan Harris: the voluptuous, unusually competent, secretary or office manager every straight man wanted to have sex with. One thing that intrigues me was that I was given more respect and regard when I was new to the field than decades later in Miami when I was a seasoned pro. (By that time many witless account executives fancied they were creative, which resulted in the complete downfall of my last agency.) But anyway, back to Mad Men. I think the show captures perfectly the many moods of an ad agency: the camaraderie of an office party, the exhilaration of getting a new account, the desolation of working late, the panic of coming up with a new idea, the joy of having your concept accepted, and the annoyance of dealing with clients who don't recognize what's best for them. For the most part I find the characters and situations very real and similar to many I've known. However, I found the Salvatore Romano character's angst unbelievable because I never knew of anyone who openly objected to having a gay man or woman on staff. There would have been no need to remain in the closet (a term that didn't exist then). Plus our straight office romances weren't nearly as gossip-worthy since they often involved the recently divorced rather than the tentatively married. Mad Men also realistically captures a feeling for the culture of the time: the death of Kennedy, the popular books like The Fountainhead and The Best of Everything. (The set for Mad Men was certainly based on the movie set of The Best of Everything). Another oddity is that, unlike today, most of the staff went home by 5:30. I know I did. While many of the staff lived in Boston's posh and not so posh suburbs, most of us lived in the Back Bay or nearby community. So we weren't like Don Draper and other ad men catching the train to Ossining or Scarsdale. Creatives who were more ambitious or more enamored with advertising (not I) dreamed of working in New York and often did. Later you would see their names in such revered publications as The One Show book. One such multi-award winner was a kid who had worked in the mailroom at Ingalls. So how realistic is Mad Men? Very realistic. And to people like me, very nostalgic. Overall I think that being in advertising in the 60s was an incredible privilege. It was being part of the Golden Age of advertising: a time of classic campaigns for clients like VW ("How does the man who drives the snow plow get to the snow plow?") and memorable commercials like Noxzema's "Take if off. Take it all off." I hadn't as yet written for national accounts, but a close friend worked on the Kennedy election campaign and American Tourister luggage with such spokespersons as Bob Hope and Shirley Jones. Sadly I have not been in touch with many colleagues from that great period, other than a brilliant art director who still lives in Boston and a talented (and gorgeous) writer who has her own business in Toronto. But then I doubt—if they were real—that Peggy Olson, Peter Campbell, Ken Cosgrove and others would be friends today.