They’re Not ‘Mad Men’ Anymore. But the Ad Business Is Still High Stakes. -- NYT

From a review of Ken Auletta's latest book, Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else); also see an extensive article adapted from the book: How the Math Men Overthrew the Mad Men (The New Yorker)

"Auletta surveys the tumultuous, treacherous ad landscape through the framework of frenemies. Not only are Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley frenemies, but so, too, he declares, are ad agencies and their marketer clients; agencies and media companies; traditional and digital media companies; agencies and consultancies like Accenture and McKinsey; agencies and software firms like Adobe and Salesforce.com; and, perhaps most telling, advertising and consumers. The easier it becomes for the public to zip, zap through and avoid interruptive ads — through innovative technology like ad blockers and streaming video — the madder, and more anxious, the mad men (and women) grow.

Yet as dire as their fate looks, some flowers bloom amid the gloom, taking the edge off the book’s pessimism. A respected industry strategist, Rishad Tobaccowala, tells Auletta: “People say we are dinosaurs. We are not dinosaurs. We are cockroaches. Everybody hates us. Nobody likes to see us. But cockroaches have outlived everyone. We scurry out of corners. We soldier on and hire people with different skill sets.”"

They’re Not ‘Mad Men’ Anymore. But the Ad Business Is Still High Stakes. -- NYT