Typing at Sterling Cooper

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The technology seen around the office in Mad Men is pretty basic compared to the appliances employees working at Sterling Cooper would encounter if they were working there today. That’s why it is so funny to the audience of Mad Men when Joan remarks that the typewriter looks intimidating and advanced. The typewriter; in reality, was a pretty simple device that helped drive offices like Sterling Cooper’s for a good part of the 20^th century.

Christopher Sholes invented the modern typewriter in 1866. The modern typewriter was the first typewriter with a universal keyboard. Shortly after this invention hit the marker, one of Sholes associates changed the keyboard to the modern QWERTY design, which caused the keys to jam less. The typewriter was a tough gadget to market at first, for a wide variety of reasons: the unwillingness of businesses to move on from handwriting, the economic stagnation of the time and the price, which was around 100 dollars (http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/scitech/carbons/typewriters.html).  With a price like that, the typewriter was worth more than most modern computers, with prices adjusted for inflation. Typewriters were also tough to use, because if a typist made more than a few mistake they would have to trash their current document and start all over with a new one.

Around the time the first season of Mad Men takes place, (1960s), (http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/Dvorak/history.html) the first electronic typewriters were being introduced to the market. Sterling Cooper doesn’t use these in the first season, but they would have been one of the companies that would have adopted them to their offices.

Without the typewriter, offices like the one in Mad Men would have had a much harder time producing documents, and offices would have been a lot less productive. Despite the cro-magnon-like appearance that the audience takes away from the device today, it was definitely useful for the era.

Diet Craze

Americans searching for a quick and easy fix to lose weight wasn’t anything new in the 1960’s, as there is evidence of diet fads dating all the way back to the 1820s. However, the 1960’s was a period where the ideal body image of a woman was rapidly changing. The full-figured ideal of the Victorian era was long out of the picture and the thin, voluptuous image led by Marilyn Monroe  of the 1950’s was being phased out with the introduction of extreme slenderness headed by Twiggy of the 1960’s.

 Image Credit: http://www.gymnasium-meschede.de/projekte/projekt12-05/images/latervictorian.jpg

 

Image credit: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhVg0nXwN4kWGj4W9Ekabp7bOhlEGbBaBhG1Wd_so4WYFnrZ91mA064MJf6HWeB0E1I_9znkWXHNdSaBN8hGHm7bNa0aDIi_wUWDIj87l6muIrrMWKdFkIf1j5V2weJJl0YhmJWFaBdreV/s1600/Marilyn-Monroe-Quotes.jpg

Image credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f1/Twiggy_promo.jpg/220px-Twiggy_promo.jpg

In the episode “Indian Summer” of Mad Men, the ad men are discussing how to market a new weight-loss belt and enlist Peggy to try it out and give them a first-hand testimonial. When Peggy asks the men why they picked her, Don replies that it’s simply because she’s a woman. When Peggy comes back to the men with her presentation, the situation is very awkward for her as the device turns out to serve more sexual purposes than anything practical. After the presentation is over, the men condescendingly give Peggy a pat on the back as they leave the conference room. The views of the men on how women need to watch their figure is very objectifying and degrading. Meanwhile, one of the most popular diets for men was called “The Drinking Man’s Diet” which was published by Robert Cameron in 1964. The name describes the gist of the diet, which involved lots of protein, low carbs and, of course, lots of alcohol. The contrast between how ridiculous women’s dieting was and how lighthearted men’s dieting was accentuates the varying roles in the male-dominant society of the 1960’s.

Image credit: http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4fbbb5b76bb3f7e35a000004-400-300/1950s-vibrating-belts.jpg

Links referenced: Rutherford, Diane. "A Bizarre History of Diet Fads in America." Suite101.com. Burda Digital Ventures, 25 Mar. 2009. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. <http://suite101.com/article/a-bizarre-history-of-diet-fads-in-america-a104774>.

Don Schupack

The process of creating advertising campaigns is transformed from pencil pushing to an art form in the television series Mad Men. To me, the recurring “light bulb” idea moments stood out as the more memorable of the first season. There are many scenes that fall under these criteria but Don’s idea pitch scene in “The Wheel” and the ad campaign created for Menken’s stand out more than the others. Acting as a looking glass into a previously unexplained world, these scenes also led me to ponder how modern ad agencies conduct their ad campaigns. I’ve decided to explore modern advertising techniques by examining the campaign for a product anyone reading this is sure to have consumed: Mad Men.

The ad campaign for Mad Men is incredibly iconic with its enticing and bold use of colors and art styles as well as its strategic and captivating use of music and other media. The first season of Mad Men employed the techniques of the always interesting, and downward spiraling, Amy Winehouse with the use of her song “You Know I’m No Good” for the show’s commercial spots. This move was incredibly intelligent of the advertisers marketing Mad Men to the public. Amy Winehouse’s music is a combination of modern pop and 60’s jazz, a clear reference to the show’s combination of modern and retro: issues of the 60’s mixed with racy modern plot-lines.

One similarity between the Menken’s ad campaign and Mad Men’s is the use of new age technique and thought in the marketing of a product. Much like Sterling Cooper’s addition of modern European fashion and innovative displays and customer service at Menken’s, the advertisers behind Mad Men build buzz for the series through promotion via blogs, Twitter and Facebook. The advertisers have even created a mini game online called "Mad Men Yourself" where fans can create their own Mad Men-ified copies of themselves. Mad Men is also in a joint campaign with Banana Republic with “Mad Men characters and images alongside Banana Republic looks” to promote the show and act as a “testament to the broad influence the series has had on the world of fashion design” ("AMC and Banana Republic Extend 'Mad Men' Marketing Promotion for a Second Year").

Linda Schupack, the mastermind behind the marketing of Mad Men, created the ad campaign in this way to not just earn viewership but “to entertain people." Don Draper is incredibly privy to this concept as scene in his monologue in “The Wheel” and various other rants in the series on the general public. The public, according to Don, wants to be entertained by their advertising not told what to do by it. How appropriate that advertising for Mad Men emulates the virtues of Don Draper?

(The articles cited in this post (check them out) also have plenty of other Mad Men advertising shenanigans performed by Schupack and her team, including shrink wrapping a train in Grand Central Station and handing out Sterling Cooper business cards.)

Links referenced:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/07/27/090727ta_talk_schulman
http://www.mediaite.com/online/interview-amc-goes-meta-marketing-mad-men

Technical Problems

The Pilot episode, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," makes a few minor blunders in terms of technological history. The first time we meet Peggy, Joan introduces her to a typewriter and assures here it’s "simple enough for a woman to use." The typewriter in question is the IBM Selectric II, which was not released until 1971. Indeed the original IBM Seleca wasn’t released until 1961. As this episode was based in 1960, it was an artistic liberty taken by Mad Men, which allowed for technology to magically appear before it was developed.

The audience is once again confronted by the technological limitations of the time when Don claims that there is no "magic machine" that can make identical copies of documents. This is particularly interesting since the first Xerox machine was introduced in 1949. However, these are trivial details that pale in comparison to the overall spectacle that is Mad Men. Let’s draw the line at flying saucers.

Links referenced: TV.com and Wikipedia.