The Biggest and Best

‘The story of advertising told in a way never attempted before: accurate, all-embracing, focussing on the creative work and how advertising was affected by and affected the world around it.’


‘The first book to really look at the world of advertising as it really was, not through the usual rose-tinted spectacle.’


‘He was there. He did it. Was at the very top but he uses his scholarly background to unpick the advertising industry.’ 


This is the updated second edition of The Biggest and Best, the first volume in a seven volume history of advertising. 


The worldwide spend on advertising is enormous. Whether people like it or they are inundated with advertising messages almost every minute of the day - wherever they are. More importantly it is a thread that runs through the social history of our lives. Some may even remember ads fondly.


This series is an enormous undertaking and one that deftly balances the history of advertising between the big global overview and the detail of what it was actually like to work in the advertising business.


It starts at the very beginning but only to set the context as well as correcting some oft-repeated errors about how agencies came into being and the roles they played. All the time it uses the writings of people who were there and were very much part of the newly emerging agency world.


To make it real rather than a just a skimming over the surface, the author then looks at the history of specific agencies but with a focus on two that ultimately would have a profound effect on the ad business. Changing it forever.


Volume One takes the story into the early 1970s capturing the industry as never explained before.


And who would have guessed that the most unexpected agencies paved the way for another agency called Saatchi & Saatchi to conquer the world.