Mad Men Water Cooler: “Tea Leaves”
Welcome to our weekly “Mad Men” Water Cooler, where we use AMC’s hit television show as an lens for exploring creativity in the arts. There will be spoilers from here on out, so read ahead for our take on this week’s shenanigans from Don Draper, Peggy Olson, and the members of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce … including the newest additions.
Mad Men Water Cooler – “Tea Leaves”
When we first met the jittery, hyper-frenetic Michael Ginsberg (played by Ben Feldman) on last week’s episode, “Tea Leaves,” I was wondering how long it would take before Peggy had to ask him if he was high on some sort of upper. Instead, the guy charmed the usually-gruff Don Draper into giving him a job, making Michael Ginsberg the newest addition to the “Mad Men” scene…and setting us up for a season that I’m sure will irritate Peggy and the other inmates of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce to no end.
When we first meet Michael, he claims that it’s his dream to work at SCDP, which got us wondering: what were some of the other power-player advertising agencies around at the time of “Mad Men,” and what were they up to during 1966? Below are some of the key players in the real-life 1966 advertising scene.
The advertising gurus at DDB have already made an appearance on “Mad Men;” the firm’s “Think Small” and “Lemon” ads for Volkswagen changed the game for advertisers everywhere, and have caused serious headaches for Don Draper and the rest of the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce staff. In fact, Michael Ginsberg gets his interview with Peggy precisely because his portfolio doesn’t contain an advertisement modeled after DDB’s much-copied campaign. DDB is still in business today, and has been responsible for ad campaigns including the infamous “Daisy” advertising campaign for Lyndon Johnson and the “Mikey Likes It!” campaign for Life Cereal.
The first shot of the season took place at the offices of Young and Rubicam, or Y&R, and set up the addition of Dawn, an African-American secretary and the other new addition to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. While there’s no information I can find as to whether or not the incidents depicted actually took place, Y&R is still in existence today as one of the premier advertising agencies in the world. Their recent advertising clients have included campaigns for Virgin Atlantic, Bacardi, Land Rover, and Panasonic. Why do I get the feeling that Don Draper and Roger Sterling would be especially interested in that campaign for Bacardi?
Della Femina Travisano & Partners
A 2009 interview with advertising legend Jerry Della Femina in USA Today recounts that, if anything, “Mad Men” has downplayed the boozing, womanizing culture of the 1960s advertising world. However, between the three-martini lunches and skirt-chasing, DFT and Partners managed to come up with advertising campaigns for Geritol, RJ Reynolds Tobacco, and Contac, a client list that Don Draper would kill for. The firm was founded in 1967; might we see some competition for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce on future seasons of “Mad Men?”
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