Sky Atlantic documentary focuses on the 'D&AD Generation'

Ad Men will be broadcast at 9pm on Monday 26 March on Sky Atlantic.

Tim Lindsay, D&AD chief executive, said: "British advertising is seen all over the world as the benchmark for creative excellence. D&AD was established in 1962 to highlight the value and importance of design and advertising to our culture and economy, and over the last 50 years the organisation has become the international standard setter for commercial creativity. A D&AD Pencil is the Oscar of the creative industries, and many of the ads shown in Ad Men will have been the recipient of an Award."

RSA's executive producer Caspar Delaney said: "It's great for RSA to be moving into TV documentaries with a subject matter so close to our hearts. We were inspired by this year's fiftieth anniversary of D&AD, the organisation at the heart of Britain's creative industries.

"It's a fascinating story about the country's most memorable ads and the amazing, eccentric and maverick men who made them. With great access to the big names of the business such as Alan Parker, David Puttnam and John Hegarty, this is the story of one of the most significant chapters in British cultural history, straight from the horses' mouths."

Pull quotes from Ad Men:

Bob Brooks: "D&AD was created to showcase the work of art directors and copywriters, advertising people and designers . . . But the important thing is names were named and suddenly the whole business became professional. Salaries went up, that was the whole idea, we weren't in art we were in a business, this is what advertising was - selling."

Tim Bell: "Why did I want, why did I want to go into advertising? 'Cos I had to earn my living. . . It was a very exciting business which people talked about. And I'm ashamed to admit that I quite like being visible and having a profile. The dynamic was that we were only interested in producing advertising that worked. We weren't interested in producing advertising that retained the status quo."

John Hegarty: "I think the function of advertising is to constantly try and capture the mood and feeling of the people, and reflect it back in a way which is positive and energising. We'd hire a farting dog with bad breath and only three legs if it could come up with a brilliant idea. We genuinely would."

Frank Lowe: "D&AD was important... It has a book. It has an Annual and it's not just the winners, it's all the work of that year that is going to be good. And so if you're a creative man, to have your work in a book of record means a great deal, which other festivals don't have."

Carol Cass: "We made this commercial for no money, put it into D&AD - which was the absolutely gold standards in those days, no other awards were worth having, just the one - D&AD. We won a Yellow Pencil so we'd gone from nowhere to having a D&AD. The night that we went to pick up that D&AD Award, our first pencil, from whoever it was that was giving out the awards, from that day our lives changed and the very next morning we got phone calls from the two other best agencies in London to see if we wanted to work there."

Alan Parker: "I'm very grateful to advertising. First of all I absolutely would not have gone into feature films but for advertising. I wouldn't write screenplays but for the fact that I was a writer in advertising. I got the self confidence by writing ads and I got the self confidence to be a film director by directing them. The most important thing is if you're shooting once a week, week in week out, you do learn your craft. It was my film school."

Chris Palmer: "There were these girls who were doing A D&AD evening class, and they said 'oh we've got to do something on coffee beans this week', so I said, 'what about this, and they'd come back and said you know your idea, it went down really well."

Ridley Scott: "People used to get up from their chair to go and get a beer when the programme started, then you'd get for the commercial break. The commercial breaks in those days were better than the TV shows, and those were the days when commercials were, I believe influencing, feature films, communication, editing, etc, etc, because the ground was completely exploratory."

Dave Trott: "The most important thing then was having your name [in the book]. When we were young and the D&AD Annual arrived we'd turn to the back and see how many numbers we had after our name and then look at our competitors and see how many numbers they had after their name."

Juan Cabral: "We used to get the D&AD [Annual]. You could see what the best of the best was like, and it was really nice, you know, to go through that and see people at their best of their craft. I have a lot of appreciation for London. I feel like the best ideas come from there."

David Puttnam: "We were doing at one point, an ad a day, which was pretty hard work. It was more like working I think almost - more like working on a newspaper, than it was working in an ad agency. But it was very exciting, and what was good, we won a lot of awards. I was a very early member of D&AD. In ninety sixty four, I remember we totally cleaned up in the awards."

About D&AD

D&AD is a not-for-profit organisation that represents the international design, advertising and creative communities. More than any other organisation, D&AD sets industry standards, educates and inspires the next generation and promotes the importance of creativity, innovation and ideas within the business community. Go to www.dandad.org for further information.