Mad Men - Creating Classic Advertising

Very exciting news – AMC’s Mad Men starts up again this Sunday.  For my money the best show since the Sopranos.  For those who have not seen the show, it is a look at a New York ad agency in the early 60’s.  A fascinating portrayal of the men and women of that era juxtaposed against the advertising, media and marketing business.  The choice to set the show in the transitional early 60’s was savvy because it allows the show to explore the changing roles of men and women right before Vietnam and the civil rights and women’s rights movements.

It is a guilty pleasure watching the behavior of these guys in the office – smoking, drinking and womanizing is standard procedure.  And, so were sexism, harassment, racism and anti-Semitism - all out in the open.  It is jaw dropping to watch behavior that was then commonplace vs. today’s super sensitive politically correct workplace.

If you are in the marketing/media business you have to watch the advertising aspect of the show.  I get a charge out of watching them meet with clients, come up with ideas and pitch creative.  It was the heyday of traditional interruption based marketing.  They came up with a campaign and then bought tons of media in print, on billboards, or on television/radio.  That were all the options available, and there is nary a word about ROI, custom content or interactivity.  It was one-way communication from companies to the masses.  The ad agencies and media companies had a nice thing going, and they got rich fat and happy running ads.  They really never had to prove the ads worked as long as the drinks were flowing at lunch.

The “hero” is agency Creative Director Don Draper who is my favorite fictional character since the man with whom he shares many traits – Tony Soprano.  Don is morally ambiguous and lives by his own code of honor.  He is very ambitious and masterful with clients when pitching ideas.  Like Tony, he leads a complicated life juggling his family, extra-marital activities and his bosses and staff at the agency. An interesting aspect of the show is how the women in Don’s life represent the different and changing roles for women in the early 60’s. 

Keep an eye on how Don and his team come up with campaign ideas for their clients.  While we can make fun of the primitive tools they had to get the message out to their prospects, Don has incredible insight into how to craft a message.  He understands that great advertising is all about tapping into the mindset of the customer.  He strives to come up with concepts for the “emotional sell”.  A valuable lesson for today’s marketers to remember – good advertising and marketing is all about the customer, their needs and how they feel about themselves.  Sometimes because we have so many tools and technologies at our disposal we forget the basic fundamentals.  How many bad ad campaigns have we seen from marketers who just want to tap into the flavor of the week?  Putting the wrong message on a cool site; or just adding social networking to the mix does not make for good advertising.

Many people think advertising is about convincing or persuading someone to buy a product.  It is actually about making them realize they have an unmet need (physical or emotional) that can be filled with your product or service.  The customers who lined up for days to get the new iPhone were not “brainwashed” by Apple’s advertising; or even wowed by the technology.  They were searching to fill an emotional need to be the “first to have something” which validates their personality (yes, I was a psych major).  Apple does a brilliant job of leveraging that emotion.

On that note, my favorite scene is when Don is out with a group of bohemian type beatniks at a poetry reading.  One of beatniks starts in on him for “making people buy things they don’t want or need”, and then condescendingly asks Don “how he sleeps at night”.  Don coolly picks up his glass of scotch, smiles and replies “on a bed of money”.
 

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