After reading Peter Mayle's "The Vintage Caper" (see yesterday's post), I discovered that he started in advertising first as a copywriter, and left 15 years later as a reluctant executive, according to PeterMayle.com. His nonfiction is just as cheeky as his fiction. See for yourself. From the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon, the opening paragraph of "Up the Agency":
"Advertising has been variously described as an art, a profession, a sinister instrument of mass persuasion, and a ludicrous waste of money. It hovers on the fringes of big business and show business, of sports and politics, of sleaze and respectability all at once. It is impossible to ignore, and yet most people deny that they are influenced by it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. In either case, conclusive proof is hard to come by because of all the other elements involved in persuading millions of people to make a particular choice. It is this—the delightfully imprecise nature of advertising—that makes it such a happy hunting ground for the articulate young person who is convinced he or she has a great idea. Maybe it is indeed a great idea, or maybe it is a piece of twaddle artfully presented, but who's to know? There are no foolproof methods of judging, no truly reliable methods of prediction, no guarantees of success. It's a funny business."
—Peter Mayle, Up the Agency: The Funny Business of Advertising
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