Age of Persuasion State Secrets Revealed: My Favourite Links to Great Ads

 Keith & me working on AOP

Yay, friends! You too can access the fantastic spots we source for The Age of Persuasion.  Beyond the banker's boxes full of reels and cassettes and CD's in my office- and the heaps of spots in Terry O'Reilly's collection, many of the feature spots on our show can be found online, on some wonderful websites:

THE RADIO MERCURY AWARDS
A search-able database of so many wonderful American radio ads from one of the better ad awards competitions.

THE LONDON INTERNATIONAL AWARDS
Not as search friendly, but there are great spots posted in the archives here.

CANADA'S RADIO MARKETING BUREAU
A wealth of material- Canadian and some international- going back decades.  But it's like a big pile of goo dumped in an attic.  Many treasures, but finding them is a crapshoot.  Cataloging is poor, and details are nonexistent. This site has been most useful when I've known what I was after before I started searching.  Now and then I discover spots on here that I wrote 25 years ago.

THE CASSIES
This site has been a plum for Age of Persuasion research.  Not just for its treasury of great Canadian TV spots- but especially for the detailed, well-researched backstories behind them.


LE BUREAU DE COMMRECIALISATION DE LA RADIO DU QUEBEC 
The Quebec Radio Bureau site has some wonderful links to ads- English and French.  Been a great place to browse when I wasn't sure what I was looking for.


Enjoy.

NEXT POST:  MY FAVOURITE LINKS TO OLD-TIME RADIO ADS

Why I'm leaving The Age of Persuasion

This week I am announcing that I'm leaving The Age of Persuasion radio series after this season ends (in June).

It's been a privilege and a hoot working with Terry and Keith, creating more than 100 shows, and collaborating with Terry on The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture.

It's been the best kind of work- and the hardest. Being the lone full-time staffer on the show, I've logged more than 450 days researching & writing, and more than 1600 hours in production, and a a half-year of working full-time, flat-out, on the book manuscript.

Now it's time to see what the rest of the world looks like.

For now, we're still very busy on the shows that remain between now and June. Whatever comes next for AOP, I'm delighted to leave it as it should be- in its prime.

And with nothing but gratitude to Terry, Keith, our CBC friends, the great folks at Pirate- and especially our listeners- for such a great ride.

-Mike