The purpose of the book is to provide an overall view of advertising in the twentieth century while filling in the gap of information that exists in Italy where just a few names are known. The book also provides a leading thread about those professionals who; in the second half of the 20th century; were the protagonists of the creative revolution and whose influence has been seminal on both American and English advertising. The book has no historical intentions nor aims at classifying people into schools or categories (as such an approach would be pretentious and inadequate in a profession so deeply entangled with economics and consumer attitudes). The content in brief: The book is made up of short biographies of famous and well known advertising people ? mainly art directors and copywriters ? interspersed with a few explanatory chapters that are simply summaries on certain subjects. For instance The Big Agencies outlines the origins of historical agencies; such as J.W. Thompson; BBDO; and Young Rubicam. The State of Things explains what happened after the (so called) Creative Revolution. The Spot-Makers presents people like Howard Zieff; Joe Pytka; Rick Levine; and Bob Giraldi. Old School Ties and Colonels is about British advertising before Collett Dickinson and Pearce. La Grande Parade depicts the peculiarities of French advertising and Carosello and its Victims explains the unusual features of the Italian Carosello (an early TV format that hosted commercials); etc. Biographies are structured differently along the lines of individual stories and; generally; tend to highlight the meaningful events in ones career rather than their early life and experiences. This way of telling a story is; of course; somewhat influenced by the author s experiences and point of view and represents the original aspect of the book. Among the influentials ; Americans and Britons outnumber French and Italians. A final section with Contributions by various authors and famous copywriters: Gossage; Della Femina; Abbott; Seacute;gueacute;la; Marcantonio; Pirella; etc. completes the book.The Author: Pia Elliott worked as a copywriter in multiple international advertising agencies before co-founding Promos Italia (which would go on to become part of BBDO). Her agency became a school for some of the most creative copywriters and art directors in Italian advertising. Later on in her life Pia Elliott focused her attention towards Institutions. She coordinated many communication campaigns for the European Union; even spearheading the public service announcements introducing the Euro as common currency. Nowadays Mrs. Elliott spends her time writing about advertising; teaches University-level courses and seminars; and is working on a biography regarding a select few of contemporary and historical musician
#546806 in eBooks 2014-12-29 2014-12-29File Name: B00RZT1XVE
Review
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. One of the Best New Plays!By MARZENA BUKOWSKAPoland is known for its heroism during World War II. This play; however expose the dark page of the of Polands history trough the true story of friendship; love and betrayal. Heartbreaking ; beautifully hunting; masterfully written!0 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Worst play ever writtenBy MartyThis is probably; in my estimation; the worst play ever written. It is yet another meaningless recounting of the horrors of the holocaust. It is meaningless in that it doesnt present it in any new light; provide us with any new insight into its nature; nor does it give us any clue as to how to avoid these things in the future. The only modestly important information that it provides is that the "righteous gentiles" that helped save at least a few Jews in Poland were ostracized by their fellow countrymen after the war.Why is it so bad? Well; the barbarism and tragedies depicted in the play are well known and have been depicted over and over again. Of course; it is necessary to maintain these atrocities in public memory to prevent them from being relived over and again. But that has been done in a number of outstanding works of literature and of art in general. But what we have here is a depiction as offensive as the Vienna holocaust "memorial." One that feature an elderly religious Jew forced to clean the streets with his beard. Rather than focusing on the essential humanity of the victim; it shows us the dominance of the oppressors. The play seems to capitalize on the central atrocity (well known in the holocaust literature) as a form of sensationalism.So heres the bottom line: if youre going to say something about the holocaust; it should add to the existing channels of thought relating to this tragedy. It should teach something. The monuments to the dead are in place. Thats not to say new insight isnt needed. Its just that this play doesnt provide it. Id go so far as to say that local theater groups that air it should be ashamed.Here are a few other observations. If youre bored or think youve gotten enough; you should stop reading at this point. The play does nothing to shed light on why Poland had such an egregiously large deportation rate; even when Nazi Germany is taken into the picture! This contrasts with numbers published by Yad Vashem (and other organizations) showing very little direct collaboration between the Nazis and the general Polish population. These numbers also show a large number of Polish Jews were "saved" from extermination by their polish neighbors. And yet; at the end of the war; "returnees" from the camps were the victims of venom and violence. And now; as of this writing; Germany has a Jewish population over 200;000. Poland; on the other hand; has a small (but vibrant) Jewish population of about 20;000.It would be really good to get some better understanding of what went on in that time period to explain these apparent contradictions. Im somewhat distrustful of the historical validity of the central premise of the plot - that Jews and non-Jews in Poland enjoyed close contact in schools and in other social institutions before the war. Im also skeptical of the plays premise that the winds of politics before; during and after the war were responsible for the terrible tragedy of the Jews of the nation. I dont really buy off on the idea that familiarity and close contact made for easy access to ultimate victims. Possibly the fact that; by in large; the Jews lived in rather insular communities allowed for easy round up and extermination.Yes; Warsaws Jewish population was second only to New York City in that time period. So there had to be social interaction. And in the distant past; Poland was considered the "paradise for the Jews." But religious Jews would have gone to a yeshiva and not mingled with the general school cohort. And; while the Warsaw Ghetto (totally encapsulating the Jews) was a Nazi construct; it was completed by 1940. It was made up of areas that were largely Jewish to begin with in earlier times. This population "clumping" would have impeded "integration"in any event. And surely; Poland was not immune from the antisemitism of Europe in general.
