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James Webb Young: The Diary Of An Ad Man (Paperback, 2007, Kessinger Publishing, LLC) 4 stars

Get into the mind of a War-Era Don Draper

4 stars

As a publicist by trade, I was fascinated by this "classic" of the field. Meet the business-friendly, New Deal hating ad man of yesteryear. He dreams of selling as much a possible to a post-war world that needs supermarkets and suburbs. One insight that Young has is that everyone was feeling beaten down by the modern world and all the machines in their lives. A great ad campaign would give us the feeling that buying this product give one memories of a simpler time, before factories and war. That kind of campaign still works in our computer hellscape 2023. Calgon, take me away!