I have seen lots of agency/client relationships. Hundreds. Thousands, maybe. In all sorts of industries, in tiny companies and giant companies. And most of these relationships were terrible. Continue reading
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Tag Archives: mad men
The New Friday (With Profanity)
Creative work is a lot like sausage-making and politics: you might like the end result, but you don’t want to see how the ads get made. The real problem with Mad Men is that it’s far too tame and civil. Ad agencies are pressure-cookers. We’re trying something new. Continue reading
George Lois Hates Mad Men And Thinks You Should, Too
So George Lois, the famous designer and art director who has taken credit for such groundbreaking campaigns of the Sixties Creative Revolution as “I Want My Maypo” and Volkswagen’s “Think Small” ad, hates Mad Men. In an interview in Playboy a few months back–an issue that, ironically, seems to be all about celebrating Mad Men and features a pictorial of one of the show’s minor players–Lois heaps disdain on the series. Here, in part, is what Lois had to say: Mad Men misrepresents the advertising industry by ignoring the revolution that changed the world of communications forever. That mortal sin … Continue reading
The World After Sally Spilled Her Milkshake
So. Are we shocked? Aghast? Did any of us, in our wildest dreams, believe this season of Mad Men would end with Don Draper getting married? To his secretary? Surely, we’d have sooner believed that Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce would be out of business, Don Draper destitute, shooting horse with his old flame Midge (Midge Daniels, btw: no relation to our governor), running away to join the hippies, stabbed and bleeding out in a Soho alley, than engaged to be married. Shocking. It doesn’t make sense. Except that it makes all the sense in the world. Don has spent the … Continue reading
The Least Important Most Important Thing There Is
In the middle of “Blowing Smoke,” the penultimate episode of Season 4 of Mad Men, Peggy Olson asks Don Draper if they’re going to do anything to try to reverse their agency’s slide into bankruptcy. He informs her that they’re going to stay in their offices and pound at their typewriters, because that’s what they do. “We’re creative,” he says, “the least important most important thing there is.” Don is frustrated. Earlier in the episode, he’s been rebuffed by a prospect from Heinz–the secret meeting Dr. Faye Miller facilitated for him–who tells him to “let the account boys” handle the … Continue reading
How To Have A Career In Advertising Without Losing Your Soul
First, a question for client types out there: do you get nervous when your ad agency loses a big account? Are you afraid they’re going to have massive layoffs and you’ll lose the people you depend on to do your advertising? Do you think that, because they’ve lost Lucky Strike, they’re not as talented as you’d imagined they were? Do you need reassurance? Because in “Chinese Wall,” Episode 11 of Season 4 of Mad Men, the crew at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s first order of business after losing Lucky Strike is to call all the clients and assure them that … Continue reading
