John Akehurst’s original collages always remind me of that scene in Mad Men when Don Draper pitches ‘The Carousel’ to Kodak. Like much of the show it’s worth re-watching, and this transcription won’t do Jon Hamm’s performance justice.
“Technology is a glittering lure, but there is the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash. If they have a sentimental bond with the product.
My first job I was in-house at a fur company. This old pro copy writer. A Greek named Teddy.
And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is “new.” It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion.
But he also talked about a deeper bond to a product. Nostalgia. It’s delicate but potent. Switch it on. Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means, ‘the pain from an old wound.’ It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.
This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards. And it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called ‘The Wheel.’ It’s called ‘The Carousel’. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around and back home again. A place where we know we are loved.”