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If you’re like me, you’re a fan of the television show . The premise is simple: characters work at an advertising agency located on Madison Avenue during the glittering sixties. I like the program because it closely aligns with the work I do at .

Similarities between architecture and advertising aren’t hard to see. In both fields, professionals try to understand what a client wants and then attempt to distill that desire into a product. Both require creativity and conceptualization, both require late-nighters and constant re-drafting, and most-importantly, both define an image for a company or an institution. The type of building that a company designs for itself is very revealing of its core values. After all, architecture is merely a vehicle through which clients direct their values and aspirations.

In my opinion, a good ad campaign does two things: it makes make people want to buy a product or service and it converys the company’s values and brand. For example, at the end of every Ziploc commercial is a little phrase: 鈥淪.C. Johnson, a family company.鈥� Makes it seem more wholesome, right? By demonstrating that the firm has kept the business in the family, it implies that the company is family-friendly (Of note is the fact that S.C. Johnson has a ).

Traditionally, the main difference between advertising and architecture is time. An ad campaign is fleeting compared to the life-span of a typical building. Furthermore, an advertisement can exist solely to sell a product; architecture has a responsibility to protect its inhabitants and provide an environment that enhances the act of dwelling, working, playing, shopping or studying. Anna Klingmann puts it this way in :

Unlike the short-lived images of dazzling signature projects, architecture that uses branding strategies can effect lasting, meaningful changes that draw upon the dormant or explicit potential of particular cultures and places鈥�The architectural brand, by its sheer nature, is defined by a sustained public presence and characterized by an extensive duration period.鈥�

More and more, the exception to this rule is retail architecture. In this case, buildings are more like advertising and less like architecture. Consider the Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, built in 2006. At the plaza level, it’s a beautiful glass box.

The walls are glass, the ceiling is glass, and holding it all up鈥攜es, you guessed it鈥攕tructural glass framing. The box serves as a completely-transparent beacon that suspends the Apple logo for all to see. To enter the store, you must go down a flight of glass stairs or a glass-enclosed elevator to a below-grade level where the actual products are located. The interior design is minimal. Nothing is to distract customers from the attention of the products on display. Like any good advertising campaign, the building infers the qualities of the brand and the values of the company: We are technologically advanced and our products are exquisitely crafted in a minimal aesthetic so that nothing is superfluous.

And just like a re-branding strategy or a new product rollout, when the building technology got better, Apple 鈥渞e-booted鈥� the building.聽 After only five years of existence, the box was entirely re-designed and re-built in 2011. The new cube consists of 15 seamless glass panels (the old design had 90), which span from floor to ceiling. To me, it’s clear that the concept of this building is all about the brand and spectacle. Still don’t believe me? In 2011, Tech News Daily showed in a study conducted by Eric Fischer that the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue is .

Most architecture doesn’t have the chance to be re-branded in such a dramatic way when the very nature of architecture has traditionally been permanency. Many would say that it’s irresponsible to spend $6.7 million on basically the same building (though I’m sure the publicity it garnered offset the cost). But this says a lot about the value Apple places on innovation in its products and reinforces the building as a branding tool. Ethically, I have a problem with calling the project a renovation when none of the glass from the existing glass cube was used, but I’m all for technological innovation. Like many, I’m caught between ethic and awe.

Fifty years ago during the age of Mad Men, ad executives like the fictionalized Donald Draper made advertisements, and architects like Paul Rudolf designed buildings. Architecture was architecture and advertising was advertising. Today, it’s becoming harder to make a distinction.

David Shaffer is a design professional at聽.