0 The Real Mad Men - 1950s and 60s

After the devastation of World War II and the implications it had on the economy many people ended up migrating to America which had suffered far less of the post wartime impact. This lead to America, especially New York having a wider and more diverse social groups and ethnics.  Due to this increase multi cultures in one place an artistic expansion took place across everything such as film, fashion, design and also to advertising. This allowed people to become more creative with ideas and so became the 'Creative Revolution'.

This revolution was truly started by DDB (Doyle Dane Bernbach), a agency helmed by Bill Bernbach, Ned Doyle and Mac Dane. DDB changed advertising by taking risks and creating new ways attract people such as using humour and witty slogans which at that time was non-existent. Although DDB were doing everything differently and from the norm in those days they believed that adverts should 'Never lie, never never say anything about a product that it cant do'.

Probably the most famous advert created by DDB was the 'Think Small' campaign created for the Volkswagen Beetle car which 'changed the very nature of advertising'. The beetle during that time was a fairly modest is not slow, small and ugly looking car but instead of hiding these these factors with false benefits of the car (like so many adverts were doing during this period), DDB decided to embrace these aspects and use it to their advantage. The simplistic and design of the poster with the small image of the car was a nod to the small size of the car, turning it into a positive attribute opposed to a negative. The small print below listed the advantages of owning a small car. It was revolutionary ad as it did things others would not have thought of doing. Instead of stunning visuals or style it used stripped down wit and transparent honesty which proved successful.