Mad Men & Bewitched: It is Tough to Be Original
I have always wanted to be an investigative journalist and blow a story wide open. Something on par with Watergate would suffice. Then I really thought I had my own ‘Deep Throat’ in the form of Netflix. This provider of on-demand Internet streaming media distributes content that is an archival treasure trove of pop culture.
This is especially true in the eclectic and never-ending seasons of television shows it offers. As a subscriber you can toggle between Quantum Leap and Knight Rider and Fawlty Towers. Or you can enter the worlds of Dexter, American Dad, Lost, The Rockford Files, and McMillan & Wife. Not to mention Portlandia, Twin Peaks, Charlie’s Angels, and Breaking Bad.
There is even a little show called Mad Men. The charmer of critics and frequent award winner has legions of fans. These acolytes wait for Sunday nights to witness the shagging and drinking shenanigans of Don, Roger, Peggy, Pete, and Joan. Then they gather around the water cooler at work on Mondays to ask, “Did you see it?”
The fervor for this show is tied directly to its originality. Yet you may be surprised to learn that it has been done before. One only has to reach into the Netflix library for a show that ran in the decade that Mad Men creatively depicts. And here I must give credit to my wife who was enamored with a certain television character.
Experiencing some nostalgia for her childhood she forced me to watch a few episodes because “The husband is in advertising. You’ll love it.” So there I found myself watching an early American sitcom called Bewitched that ran from 1964 to 1972. It seems my wife held an early fascination with Samantha Stephens, suburban housewife and witch (insert joke about my wife here).
In the series, Elizabeth Montgomery’s spell casting Samantha, marries a mortal man. Darrin Stephens, played originally by Dick York and copied well by Dick Sargent, is an ad man to be sure. He works on Madison Avenue for the agency “McMann & Tate” and seems to commute from Connecticut. Very Mad Men indeed.
But it is in specific episodes that Bewitches influence on Mad Men is clear. In the first half of the very first season both plot and characters are so, well, so Mad Men. In the episode, “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Dog”. A client of McMann & Tate called ‘Caldwell Soup’ threatens to leave the agency. The client wants to “make kids soup conscious because anything outside of bubble gum is medicine to them”. Darrin has no idea how to meet the brief so fears he is losing his creativity touch.
Samantha acts as muse like Megan Draper for Don on the Heinz Beans account. She conceptualizes a campaign that saves the day for Darrin. This actually causes some stress in the marriage prompting Darrin to observe, “It is ridiculous to have a can of soup come between us”. That line is an insight for Darrin. He returns to the client and changes the conversation like Don Draper does on most episodes of Mad Men. Instead of the product focusing on kids Darrin convinces Caldwell Soup to go with a campaign geared to adults using the tagline, “The only thing that will ever come between us.”
In a later episode, The Witches Are Out, Bewitched covers bigotry. The client of McCann & Tate in this case is a maker of Halloween candy who insists on a stereotypical witch to adorn their product’s packaging. Samantha and her family protest the shallow and inaccurate representation. It is a thinly disguised metaphor for all forms of bigotry and analogous to the plotlines on Mad Men offering lessons on race, gender, politics, and religion.
In The Girl Reporter, Darrin is the subject for a college newspaper article and the unwanted attention of a young female reporter. He attempts to explain advertising using an analysis curve. It shows that “the public’s taste changes with the times” so people in advertising must discover “what the public wants and needs”. This all goes awry as the girl reporter pours them drinks from Darrin’s office bar in an attempt to ply him with a scotch mixed with root beer (the drink is mature and immature like the characters on both shows).
In the series Darrin is definitely Don Draper and Larry Tate is a silver-haired but more hapless Roger Sterling. Samantha is an interesting amalgam of Betty and Megan. Other similarities abound. It is amazing to see how much drinking is portrayed on a sitcom fifty-year old sitcom. Smoking is also prevalent along with naughty behavior. It takes only four episodes for one of Darrin’s clients to drunkenly and awkwardly hit on his Samantha (she uses magic to turn him into a dog).
Now if only my epiphany and observations were unique. After I recognized the parallels I rushed to record what I thought were original insights. Then I Googled “Mad Men & Bewitched” and up popped pages of results with most being finely written blog posts handily beating my discovery by years (where have I been?!). Heck, even Mad Men made a reference to Bewitched in Episode 3, of Season 4 (it obviously went over my head).
So this little piece is analogous to the Bewitched and Mad Men relationship. It is damn hard to be original.
“Who knows what the babysitter’s up to? That’s why we have a kid’s menu.” Great stuff for The Cape Town Fish Market by Lowe.
Lucky Strike Rebrands in Germany & ends up looking more Tabasco than tobacco.
Under Consideration’s site Brand New reports that a redesigned logo and packaging designed by G2 has appeared online. There is not much information available, in part because the German website is only accessible to computers in Germany and it’s not clear whether this change will apply to Lucky Strike in all countries or just Germany; all images are taken from Design Tagebuch.”
If Mad Men was today. Found at Social@Ogilvy.
Ad Agencies Confuse PR with Brand Building
Perhaps we can lay blame on the Creative Revolution of the early 1960s. That era of broadcast communications produced, on a relative basis, the largest volume of advertising we have ever seen. It is now viewed as the pinnacle of Madison Avenue’s influence. At the same time, the public relations profession was having its own golden days. The masters of spin were as sought after as the mad men.
As competition grew in the late 1960s and the phone stopped ringing, ad agencies turned to their public relations cousins and asked for help to stand out. From the mid ‘60s on, this took the form of pumping out press releases and cultivating media to cover agency activities. The vast majority of the content was announcing new clients an agency had picked up and awards won at the ever-increasing number of shows. Both of these items quickly became table-stakes material, contributing no real differentiation for the agencies. Sadly, the biggest innovation agencies introduced in subsequent decades was hiring public relations professionals to work in-house. All this did was reduce cost as these folks brought little new to the equation.
The result is advertising agencies have confused public relations with brand building for the past 50 years. Do not get me wrong: Public relations has a part to play in ensuring an advertising agency is top of mind. However, most public relations practiced by agencies remain incredibly traditional and shockingly boring for an industry that prides itself on creativity. Avi Dan, founder of Avidan Strategies, wrote in a Forbes article that agencies that hire a public relations firm as a way to solve new business struggles are soon disappointed.
The fact is each and every advertising agency needs to be its own case study in how to build a brand. It should demonstrate to clients and prospects that it is constantly innovating and experimenting with its own communications. I recognize that agencies should not make themselves the stars. Agencies exist to turn client businesses into stars. As BBDO has consistently stated, it is “the work, the work, the work” that provides differentiation in the industry. But that does not mean showcasing the amazing work done for clients is mutually exclusive from building the agency’s brand. In fact, they are one in the same.
Yet take a look around the industry, and you will discover that few agencies do this well. Even when they do something that turns heads and generates discussion, it is highly episodic because the advertising culture trains them to think and work with a campaign mentality. Not surprisingly, the campaigns are fun but predictable, like the posters promoting Biedermann McCann in Paraguay and Young & Rubicam in Ukraine.
It is not only the traditional agencies that are stuck in this rut. I am amazed that digital agencies, even with the amount of talent and tools they have, end up looking undifferentiated from each other. Websites seem static, and capabilities such as interactivity and social media come across as commodities based on the incredible similarity across the category.
The solution is to build a brand communications strategy based on thought leadership, creative excellence and real evidence that work for clients has tangible impact. This is not to be confused with sending out a press release on the number of Cannes Lions or Effies won. One frustrated marketer recently peppered me with questions: Does the advertising industry suffer from low self-esteem? Are all these awards to make you guys feel better somehow? What is the deal with all this patting on your own backs? This flustered person could not understand the extent of self-congratulation within one industry and went on to question the relevance and authenticity of the activity.
The way to go to market, be on top and stay ahead is to consistently and creatively communicate thought leadership. We all love to see finished campaigns, but there is also an opportunity to show how the agency got to the finished product. Agencies are overly concerned with either giving up something proprietary or revealing they actually have nothing proprietary. Clients know that agencies do not have a repeatable, secret sauce that works in every situation. In fact, most tune completely out when agencies share their process in new business pitches. So, there is no danger in sharing more of ‘how we do what we do.’ It is the ‘how’ not the ‘what’ that helps differentiate an agency.
The second step is to showcase creative excellence. Agencies do this pretty well but most of it has no context so the work is presented like a pristine showroom of past glories. In fact, every agency website is basically a catalogue of client campaigns that says, “See, you could have something just like this if you work with us.” Thought leadership provides the context needed to present the work in a way that actually differentiates an agency. The aggregate of the industry’s websites, print materials and social media sites is one big Pinterest board — it is visually appealing but devoid of content or context.
The third area continues to scare the industry and that is providing evidence of real business impact. I have heard and been part of this discussion for more than 20 years, and it has gotten boring. Agencies need to demonstrate that they improve the client’s business; clients need to prove that agencies add value. Surely, there is some common ground where there are metrics and measures that both can claim as the result of working together? Savvy clients are finally — and rightfully — asking prospective agencies to share business results from work with existing clients. This is where tangible differentiation resides.
As always, history is a great source for inspiration. While writing a book on the history of marketing, I came across an example in N.W. Ayer. I firmly believe it was the most influential advertising agency at any time. It was smart, self-deprecating, confident but not arrogant, innovative and focused on making clients successful. Is that not a fabulous advertising agency brand? One bit of tactical brand building it put out in 1937 was in the form of an advertisement. This clever piece communicated client satisfaction, strength of relationships, ability to service clients in multiple markets and the longevity of the business. The subtle message said ‘we know what we are doing, and you can trust us.’
N.W. Ayer built its brand in another fascinating way. The agency took it upon itself to champion the advertising industry and to answer many objections that criticized its practice. To be a symbol of integrity for the entire industry was inspired branding. Throughout the 1920s, the agency’s communication strategy told mini-stories of the role advertising played in business success. One stated: “Production is a liability until consumption is assured. That is why the experienced imagination of advertising has been so instrumental in making dreams of great industries come true.”
Brand building is not solely public relations and it is not a campaign. It is a commitment to inventively and consistently communicating thought leadership, creative excellence and real evidence that work for clients has a tangible impact. I know that some agencies are capable of this if they would just acknowledge and invest in the communications their own businesses sorely need.
Tourism branding logos show how tough it is to stand out. My favourite from this particular collection is the retro Estonia work by Interbrand. The Chile logo does not get its full due…the work was more involved including the tagline “Chile…Allways Surprising”. I was happy to have come up with that line and gratified by its ongoing use.
Mad Men, set in the art-directed world of 1960s advertising, does a retro illustration for the new season’s poster.
Managing an advertising agency isn’t all beer and skittles. After fourteen years of it, I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.
—David Ogilvy
No ads before Bill Bernbach’s iconic ’Lemon’ and ’Think Small’ looked the way they did. But once they appeared it seemed every ad was inspired to use the same layout.
This Old Hickory bourbon illustrated ad from 1956 looks to have used Don Draper and Roger Sterling as models.
