Set against a backdrop of 1990’s New York City, HONEST! tells an entertaining story of Nick Cohen’s upstart advertising agency Mad Dogs & Englishmen and its audacious attempt to make the ad business more truthful. The book is full of instructive lessons in harnessing the power of honesty, both in creating breakthrough ideas, and fostering a dynamic and healthy working environment. In 1990, in the USA, the advertising industry sat one place from last on a Gallup Poll rating the integrity of different professions.

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 Sent into an emotional spin by this horrific realization, Nick Cohen, a young British creative director, newly arrived in New York City set off on a personal mission to purge the industry of the toxic lies and distortion that was so prevalent on Madison Avenue and champion a fresh new approach; Radical Honesty. This is the funny and audacious story of the notorious and award winning creative shop Mad Dogs & Englishmen and their attempt to make advertising more truthful. Founded in the pre social media era, where word of mouth was the true social currency, word soon spread that the Mad Dogs crew were helping pioneer a new approach to advertising, that was low budget, outrageously honest, affectionately irreverent and devoted to winning their clients new fan bases based on trust.