I stumbled into watching reruns of Mad Men. Not only did the character of Donald Draper draw me in with his pompadour hair and his pristine suit (it reminded of my dad and his style) but since I’m in advertising, of course I was intrigued to see how a 1960’s ad agency was portrayed.
In one of the episodes, the character of Harry Crane convinces the higher-ups that the agency needs a Television Department. The other ad agencies had one, but Sterling-Cooper did not. Apparently, back in the day, ABC, NBC, and CBS would send in scripts from all of their shows it went on air for the ad agencies TV Department to review. That would help the agency know where to place the client’s ads and also refrain the client from being misrepresented.
For instance, one of Sterling-Cooper’s clients was Lucky Strike Cigarettes. Lucky didn’t want to be placed near footage of someone coughing and then dying. Now I know to some of you, the thought of cigarettes on TV is laughable, but until 1971, cigarette ads were airing on both radio and TV. Crazy right?
The thought of reading all those scripts to help a client get on the air I think was pretty incredible. Have to admit, I wouldn’t mind knowing the plot to my favorite shows before it aired to everyone else! But thankfully today, we have better ways to help the client get the audience they need to improve sales. Our strategies not only break down the best ways to spend the client’s budget, but we can even show the client stations that would work better for them and for their product.
If it’s 1960 or today, the TV audience will never go away and we here at Advantage Marketing have over 2 decades of experience in media buying. I’m not going to lie, pretty proud of that achievement. I would hope, Donald Draper would be too. 🙂
-Tessa Feliciano-Case
I stumbled into watching reruns of Mad Men. Not only did the character of Donald Draper draw me in with his pompadour hair and his pristine suit (it reminded of my dad and his style) but since I’m in advertising, of course I was intrigued to see how a 1960’s ad agency was portrayed.
In one of the episodes, the character of Harry Crane convinces the higher-ups that the agency needs a Television Department. The other ad agencies had one, but Sterling-Cooper did not. Apparently, back in the day, ABC, NBC, and CBS would send in scripts from all of their shows it went on air for the ad agencies TV Department to review. That would help the agency know where to place the client’s ads and also refrain the client from being misrepresented.
For instance, one of Sterling-Cooper’s clients was Lucky Strike Cigarettes. Lucky didn’t want to be placed near footage of someone coughing and then dying. Now I know to some of you, the thought of cigarettes on TV is laughable, but until 1971, cigarette ads were airing on both radio and TV. Crazy right?
The thought of reading all those scripts to help a client get on the air I think was pretty incredible. Have to admit, I wouldn’t mind knowing the plot to my favorite shows before it aired to everyone else! But thankfully today, we have better ways to help the client get the audience they need to improve sales. Our strategies not only break down the best ways to spend the client’s budget, but we can even show the client stations that would work better for them and for their product.
If it’s 1960 or today, the TV audience will never go away and we here at Advantage Marketing have over 2 decades of experience in media buying. I’m not going to lie, pretty proud of that achievement. I would hope, Donald Draper would be too. 🙂
-Tessa Feliciano-Case