Badison Avenue

Every night at midnight, creatives, copywriters, art directors and people from all corners of the Italian advertising industry sit patiently waiting for Donald Draper to appear. Though it’s not their TV screens they’re transfixed by, but their computers.

In November 2010 an anonymous creative posted his first entry under the alias Donald Draper on the Bad Avenue blog. Word spread like wildfire about its ruthless honesty and within a week it had generated a cult following and further ‘Bad Men’ signed up to join in the ongoing conversation.

Just like the ‘real’ Don Draper, he’s confident, outspoken, knowledgeable, and nobody knows his true identity. Joe Lancaster talked – electronically of course – to the creative behind the character to find out what drives his nocturnal posts, what’s wrong with Italian advertising and if he’s afraid that his cover will be blown.

What made you decide to start Bad Avenue and what did you intend to achieve with it?

I wanted to give a handsome shake to the Italian advertising community, which, as the years go by, is living under a strong anaesthetic. I wanted to write a heavily critical blog that would stimulate Italian creatives to fight for better work and better working conditions. I wanted to create shared consciousness at a moment when creativity appears to have become an accessory and creatives seem to be held hostage by clients and by the networks’ financial logic.

What was your first post on Bad Avenue about?

My very first post was about a creative’s exit from an agency. He is one of the most famous Italian creative directors. The Italian advertising magazines, which I call ‘fanzines’, published a piece of news that resembled a political statement issued by Brezhnev’s USSR more than a real piece of news reporting. I simply statedhow things really were: the agency fired him because it wasn’t doing well and his salary was too high.

How did people in the industry find out about it and how did they react?

The post was so straight-to-thepoint and different from what Italian advertisers were used to reading in the advertising magazines (fanzines), that the rumors spread in a second. Suddenly, a huge buzz was generated. By the end of the first week of blogging, Bad Avenue had more than 1,000 views per day.

Around 4,000 people read the blog regularly – most of the Italian ad industry. Do you now feel like there’s pressure on you to provide a service to them?

I did not expect such a huge success. Nowadays, knowing that I’m writing for so many people makes my blogging tougher, especially because my readers are not ordinary people, but women and men in the communication business. Each post is like writing a piece of copy. I pay great attention to both content and form. It’s a hell of a hard job.

What’s wrong with the Italian ad industry at present and what can be done to improve things?

To work as a creative in Italy is really hard and people have become resigned to this. I believe we should find the courage again to fight for our profession, for our ideas and, ultimately, for our campaigns. But something is already happening – in the last few months there’s been a new breeze in the air. Sparks of positive energy...

Other people have joined the blog and begun posting under other Mad Men characters’ names like Betty Draper and Duck Phillips. Are they people you know? Do you regulate what they post or just let them write what they want?

I do know their real names and they definitely don’t know mine. This is one of the very few rules of Bad Avenue. I let in all the people who ask to be involved, because I want Bad Avenue to become more and more of a collective voiceable to rebuild a community of professional advertisers in this country. This is something we really need in Italy right now. Apart from that, I give them absolute freedom to write whatever they like. This is another interesting point about Bad Avenue – heterogeneity.

How many people know your true identity?

None.

Do you think people understand why you want to remain anonymous, or do they criticise you for it?

Many people understand my choice to be anonymous, many others criticise it. But as things have progressed fewer people have objected. I would say that in the beginning the balance was 50/50, now it’s more like 90/10 (positive/negative). Having said that, if I wasn’t anonymous, I could never post certain content that is so provocative and hard-hitting.

What will happen if your identity is revealed? Are you frightened people might find out?

I don’t think it would be easy to discover my true identity, but should it happen, never mind. Some people would definitely hate me, but many others would congratulate me for what I’m trying to do. Last time the Italian advertising community was so lively and vibrant was more than 10 years ago. Thanks to Bad Avenue the will for discussion and confrontation is back, and so is the desire to improve creative work and working conditions. Even the ‘fanzines’ have improved. They’ve started to produce magazines that look almost real again.

Whether or not he’s a superhero who’ll save Italian advertising is open for debate, but Donald Draper's plan is working – he is getting people in Italy talking. And as long as he’s blogging, his disciples will hang on his every word. As one of his followers puts it, “I’ll wait impatiently every night at around midnight in the company of a good whisky. Thanks, Don.”

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