Today on the Menu: Advertising’s Biggest A**hole is Probably Martin Sorrell

Advertising has seen its share of assholes, and as a rule they tend to get ahead. David Ogilvy, Jay Chiat and Leo Burnett rank among the top industry assholes because they had a goal in mind and didn’t back down while working to achieve them. According to today’s guest,that isn’t a bad thing.

The biggest asshole of them all has got to be Sir Martin Sorrell. The guy waltzes into the advertising industry 20 years ago and says, “You know what, I’m going to change the way we do this &#151 advertising will now be about accounting.” Today he runs WPP, one of the largest and most prominent holding companies on the planet. He’s definitely an asshole, and if you had some of his skills you could be too.

Chris Illuminati co-authored ‘Assholeology: The science behind getting your way &#151 and getting away with it’ (click here for book) which is essentially a self-help book about building up your confidence, taking what you want, and prioritizing around number one. Yourself. I’ve been thumbing through it in hopes of gaining some knowledge on the subject, though I’m sure there are few who would disagree that I’m an asshole (though, probably not in the same sense as Illuminati’s book).

Are you an asshole? If so, make sure you’re not a douche-bag, which Illuminati defines as someone who does whatever he wants but has no redeeming qualities. There are certainly ad douches, but without doing research it’s hard to make a fair assessment. As the saying goes, don’t be a d-bag. If you aren’t sure where you land, check out Illuminati’s book &#151 which was co-written with Steven Green and Dennis LaValle.

Click continued to read some of the asshole’s 10 Demandments, guidelines to being a real asshole.

More: Episodes of the Menu

The Asshole’s 10 Demandments (we don’t want to give them all away, so here’s 4)
1. The asshole cares about the asshole the most.
2. The asshole is always right.
3. The asshole rarely apologizes.
4. The asshole takes what he wants