Nostalgia: A Pain From an Old Wound

“So, have you figured out a way to work the wheel into it?”

asks the Kodak rep.

“We know it’s hard. Wheels aren’t exactly exciting technology,” adds another.

We’re in Sterling Cooper, a Madison Avenue ad agency. The creative team is about to pitch Kodak’s new slide projector.

At the front of the room stands Don Draper.

“Technology is a glittering lure,” he begins. “But sometimes, the public can be reached on a deeper level—if they feel a sentimental bond with the product.”

He pauses.

“My first job was at a fur company, with an old Greek copywriter named Teddy. He told me the most important idea in advertising is ‘new.’ It creates an itch. You put your product in as calamine lotion.”

Another pause.

“But Teddy also believed in a deeper bond,” Don continues.

“Nostalgia. It’s delicate... but potent.”

He signals to dim the lights.

The slideshow begins.

His kids at the playground.

Don and his wife Betty sharing a hot dog.

Don, cigarette in mouth, pushing his son on a swing.

“Teddy said that in Greek, nostalgia means the pain from an old wound.”

“A twinge in your heart more powerful than memory alone.”

Slide after slide flickers by—moments of family, of warmth, of time slipping by.

“This device isn’t a spaceship. It’s a time machine.”

“It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place we ache to go again.”

“Around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.”

Then the Carousel ad appears.

The room is silent.

Some people quietly leave, holding back tears.

What does Don Draper’s pitch to Kodak have to do with college essays?

Everything.

Don isn’t selling a gadget. He’s selling emotion, connection, memory, and longing.

That’s what a great college essay does.

It’s not a résumé in paragraph form.

Not a list of awards.

It’s your Carousel. It’s a glimpse into your life that pulls the reader in and reminds them what it means to be human.

If your life were a slideshow, what three moments would you show us?

How do they connect who you were, who you are, and who you want to become?

And how does the school you’re applying to fit into that journey?