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I have
been enjoying the cable TV series Mad Men (now in its fourth
season on the AMC network). The setting of the show is the advertising
business of the 1960′s, specifically the fictitious Manhattan ad agency
of Sterling Cooper. The firm’s talented creative director Don Draper is
brilliantly acted by John
Hamm, a relative unknown prior to this role. The show’s success is
due to the smart dialogue, a talented ensemble cast, and detailed and loyal
attention to the design of the era.
While
entirely disagree with Jeff Tucker, who has
written that in its depiction of social customs and mores lies an
endorsement of the subsequent expansion of the nanny state, I believe that
there is another dimension to the show that has not been much discussed: the
show is in the minority of outputs from the entertainment industry that takes
business seriously.
Most
movies which depict business executives in one of two ways: either they
motivated entirely by
pure malevolence toward humanity in general; or, they are driven by an
over-arching greed that
transcends any other motives.
As
Alex Tabarrok writes
in the Wall Street Journal,
In the
movies, capitalists are almost invariably cast as villains. Has someone been
murdered? Are
the residents of a small town dying of cancer? Is an environment being
despoiled? Look no further
than the CEO of some large corporation. Quick, name as many movies as you can
that feature
capitalists as heroes. “Batman Forever” and “Iron
Man” do not count. There are a few (“The Edge,”
“You’ve Got Mail”), but it’s a short list. Now name
as many movies as you can that feature
mass-murdering corporations and corporate villains? That one is easy:
“The Fugitive,” “Syriana,”
“Mission Impossible II,” “Erin Brockovich,”
“The China Syndrome” and “Avatar,” to name only a
few.
Even
when a corporation is not the primary villain, Hollywood lets its dislike of
commerce be known.
The
show is nearly alone in looking at the reality of business as a complex and
challenging
undertaking of imperfect, but not malevolent human beings. The show is
clearly not anti-business in the way that Tabarrok illustrates. The
advertising industry is one of the prime
targets of anti-market ideology. The series does not condemn advertising.
Instead it takes a respectful and interested stance toward the industry and
the people in it. That is in itself a political statement.
The
story lines bounce back and forth between the office and the private lives of
the characters.
On the business side, several economic themes emerge – consumer
preference, competition, constant
change, innovation, skill, and the division of labor.
As
Tucker explained, The 60′s itself is one of the main characters in the
show. The camera often lingers over a piece of furniture, a clock, a carpet,
a car, a meal, or a costume. Typewriters are ubiquitous. The arrival of a
photocopier at the firm causes considerable consternation: where to put it?
What will clients think when they see it? After laughing at products that
were new in the 60′s but now strike us as outmoded, I realized that the
the innovation in production and constant change in consumer preference is a
theme in the show. While we are not so far removed from that era, the range
of products we have available today has changed considerably.
Consumer
preference is the driving force behind advertising. Don Draper frequently is
shown meeting with clients to discuss the needs of their business. The
executives discuss their success or failure in terms of their own customers.
A
theme of the show is success and failure of products and industries. In some
cases a business that has been stable for many years is going into decline;
for example a bathing suit company that refuses to shift its production to
what the company’s management considers risqué bikinis is losing
market share as bathing dress becomes more revealing. Many of the prominent
brands featured in the show no longer exist.
Responding
to technological change is another important theme. Television emerged and
overtook print media as a platform for advertising during this period. Harry
Crane, an account manager, invents his own job by requesting to be appointed
director of television for the firm, which prior to him, did not have one.
Not realizing the importance of this position, senior partner Roger Sterling
agrees to appoint him to this position. Over time the television department
grows as a share of the firms’ revenues, and Crane advances in his
career, adding subordinates to his department.
In
other cases, a new firm is attempting to gain market share from the industry
leaders. A young entrepreneur (whose wealth was inherited from a successful
father) believe that jai-alai
launches an expensive ad campaign based on his belief that the sport will
become as popular as baseball. We know from the perspective of the present
that this will never happen, and that the ad campaign would be a failure.
The
writers do not shy away from addressing the issue of personal success and
failure. Draper is depicted as a creative director of extraordinary talent.
His ability to connect on an emotional level with the consumers is one of the
main themes of the show. His success is achieved through his deep and
intuitive insight into the imagination of consumers and his ability to see
connections between the product and the consumer’s desires. His ability
is exemplified in a scene where he presents the advertising strategy for a
new invention – the slide projector. Draper presents a slide show of
family pictures and then explains,
Nostalgia –
it’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek,
“nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old
wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory
alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It
goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to
go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It
let’s us travel the way a child travels – around and around, and
back home again, to a place where we know are loved.
An
example of how the show addresses failure is a scene where the father of the
jai-alai entrepreneur explains that his son grew up in an atmosphere of
success (“my success”, he adds) and that only when his son has
lost his inherited wealth will he face the reality and possibly do something
valuable to someone other than himself.
Division
of labor is a theme of the show. Don Draper is fond of pointing out the the
advertising industry exists because the its customers – the producers
of products — do not have the creative skills found within the ad
agencies. At the firm, many skills are present, and as we see over the course
of a season, necessary: graphic art, account management, copy writing, and
secretarial. After he loses an account with the Hilton Hotel chain, Draper
admits that he is not an “account man”. When Draper leaves to
form his own agency, the co-founders admit that they need a CFO because none
of them knows how to manage budgets.
Competition
between firms is another theme of the shows. Sterling Cooper is a mid-tier
firm that has a few of the premium brands and some lesser-knowns. In one
story line, the firm has
the chance to get an account with a major airline (Pan Am – another
brand that no longer exists). A
serious miscalculation, which results in Sterling Cooper losing one of their
best existing customers
and failing to win the new account. A dialogue follows between Draper and
partner Roger Sterling
about their nature of risk taking.
I am
so familiar with the anti-business bias of most entertainment products that
for the first season I was expecting every scene about a business topic to be
framed with the post-modern irony quotes that have become so indispensable.
Somewhere in to the second season I began to trust that the writers were
really trying to depict business in a more realistic way – as a complex
and challenging pursuit that people do imperfectly, incorporating both
success and failure.
Robert Blumen
Robert Blumen is
an independent software developer based in San Francisco, California
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