Jerry Della Femina began his advertising career in 1961 as a junior copywriter. Having grown up in an Italian family, it was difficult for him to land his first job. Michael Bierut says in his article, ‘Jerry Della Femina, Mad Men, and the Cult of Advertising Personality,’ “He muscled his way into his first job by sending weeks of samples signed only with his initials before presenting himself triumphantly at the agency's door, announcing, ‘I'm J.D.F.’” It was a time when the industry was still filled with discrimination. Despite this, however, he created a name for himself. He went from job to job, doing exceptional work along the way. One of his most famous and ingenious advertisements read, “Before Hitler Could Kill Six Million Jews, He Had to Burn Six Million Books.”
Della Femina’s first job is hardly what the common man would expect of the advertising industry. He himself says of the general public, “…They've been fed the idea of Hollywood that an advertising man is a slick, sharp guy. The people know zip about advertising.” It was quite the opposite, in fact. Della Femina had the following to say of his first job: “The whole place was filled with young guys who suddenly discovered that somebody was going to pay them a lot of money for the rest of their lives for doing this thing called advertising, and all of us got caught up in the insanity of it and went crazy. A whole group of people slowly went out of their skulls.” According to him, alcohol and drug use as well as an uninhibited attitude toward sex was the norm. Strip poker games were held, and men peeped in on neighboring apartment buildings out of window. The advertising industry was truly insane in that era, but one thing is certain: the most interesting, creative ads of the century were the result.
Sources:
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/qa-jerry-della-femina-96113http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=14668http://www.dellafemina.com/jerry.html
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