George Parker: Tales From The Heyday Of The Ad World

Ever wonder what it would be like to live in the world of Man Men’s Don Draper? George Parker has been in advertising for a long time—since ‘before any of you were born,’ he told the audience at the PSFK CONFERENCE SAN FRANCISCO. And as you can imagine, he has quite a few stories about that age of advertising on Madison Avenue, chronicled in his book Confessions of a Mad Man, selections of which he has been kind enough to share with PSFK.

From debauchery on the open seas as a young man, to wrangling seaside crows for a mad Hollywood director, George recounted the highs and lows (but mostly substance-induced highs) of filming, gallivanting and traveling around the world. Take twenty minutes and have a laugh, you might just learn something.

The take away from George’s talk: In advertising, be very precise and very hard. And don’t forget to ‘make the bastards pay!’