Ireland in the middle of the Swinging Sixties. The glamour; the excitement; the thrill of working in an industry whose star was on the rise. It makes Mad Men look tame, so it does.
Mind you, if you didn't know that these men worked in advertising, you might be forgiven for wondering what - exactly - they are doing in this Irish Times photograph, taken at a symposium in Trinity College, Dublin in 1965.
The picture shows, on the left, DB O'Kennedy of O'Kennedy-Brindley Ltd. At the time, O'Kennedy was vice-president of the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland. On the right is JW Tate of Arks Ltd.
For our photographer Gordon Standing it was, presumably, a routine business-page assignment: men in suits, talking.
Pretty high-profile men, too. For more than a decade Arks Ltd, one of the leading ad agencies in Dublin, had been involved with the long-running RTÉ radio serial The Kennedys of Castleross, which was sponsored by their client, the chocolate giant Fry-Cadbury.
Later, they would be responsible for the Guinness “Big Wave” television adverts; the ones with the surfing dudes. In the 1980s, O’Kennedy-Brindley would be taken over by Saatchi and Saatchi, which, in the world of advertising, is about as glamorous as you can get.
So this irreverent shot is as cherishable as it is cheeky. In fact, it's more Morecambe and Wise than Mad Men. O'Kennedy has taken the role of straight man, arms folded, face steadfastly neutral. Meanwhile Tate's expression, and the position of his hands, suggest he's about to wheel around and do that lightning-fast clapping-of-the-cheeks thing which Eric used to do to Ernie.
In real life, it seems, JW Tate was neither a Mad Man or a Morecambe but an exceptionally courteous as well as creative individual; one of the seminal figures in the evolution of advertising in Ireland. But this is advertising, Irish-style. Thus he is wearing, beneath his suit jacket, a firmly-buttoned, honest-to-goodness cardigan. It’s Dad Men, so it is.
Arminta Wallace
