Infographic: Mad Men mob would be digesting metrics instead of martinis in 2013

Correlating with the latest season of Mad Men, Responsys examines the history of the marketing industry over the six decades since the hit advertising-themed show was fictionally set.

A lot more has changed in that time than the disappearance of boozy lunches and the increasing abundance of females in senior creative and executive roles (wait…)

Put simply, the marketing industry has changed significantly over the 1960s, in some areas more than others.

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 “Mad Men shows just how fast the marketing industry continues to evolve. These developments didn’t happen by accident; rather they were a response to rapidly changing consumer behaviour and demands,” says Paul Cross, president of Responsys Asia Pacific.

Cross says that, in Australia, marketers are still dealing with this shift, with modern consumers going digital, fast-forwarding through advertising on TV, reading fewer articles in print and heading online for information.

“We’re now in the era of customer-focused, relationship marketing,” says Cross. “Brands need to move away from mass-market, broadcast advertising and harness digital technologies to develop lasting, one-on-one relationships with their customers.”

From the launch of the Xerox fax machine in 1964, the first electronic message in 1971 and the introduction of early telemarketing, it seems the World Wide Web in 1991 was what changed the game completely.

From data analytics experts, revolutionised mobile communications, and the fact that 70% of companies now have a chief marketing technologist as of 2013, things have clearly evolved exponentially for marketers.

“Who knows,” says Cross, “maybe if Don Draper was around today he’d be digesting metrics instead of martinis for lunch!”

 

What would Mad Men look like today?

What would the cigarette-filled, alcohol-soaked offices of the hit TV show Mad Men look like if Donald Draper and his team were working on the biggest advertising accounts today?

To mark the return of the sixth season of the cult series to American television screens last night, stock image website Shutterstock’s creative team came up with what a few key items used by the Madison Avenue team would look like today.

It’s a nifty use of content that rides a pop-culture event while communicating Shutterstock’s role – the images, which are being shared widely and picked up by news outlets (like us) were all made using stock images available on Shutterstock.

Shutterstock says, “In the ’60s, Don was stuck working with paper and easels. It’s a lot to set up and carry around, but with the power of cloud computing, he could make his presentations infinitely more elaborate without physically weighing himself down. Not that he needs any extra help getting clients on board.”

“Sure, typewriters have a nostalgic feel that some writers still love today, but not having to go back over your work with Tipp-Ex alone makes the copywriter’s job infinitely easier. We like to picture Peggy hitting her stride even faster without having to worry about all those crumpled up balls of paper scattered around the trash.”

“Joan has no problem staying on top of everything with the limited tools at her disposal, but replace her notepad with an iPad, and you would have an even more serious force to be reckoned with — plus a lot of people who would probably like to get their hands on the device to discover all the secrets it contains,” Shutterstock says.

“For Pete, it’s largely about who you know, making a robust contact list key. In the ’60s, the Rolodex was still a relatively new invention, but these days, few people would be willing to worry about lost cards or misfiled information when you can carry around everyone’s information right in your pocket.”

Shutterstock says, “Fifty years ago, no one thought twice about relying on cigarettes to unwind or help them through a stressful situation. Today, we think Betty would be an eager adopter of what multitudes of modern women are now turning to instead to de-stress: yoga. Of course, she’d probably still smoke too.”

Shutterstock says, “Barring special occasions, liquor is another thing you don’t tend to find around the workplace much these days, so Roger Sterling would need to have a more acceptable drink on his desk. With a fruit smoothie, he could project an aura of health — but always still spike it from a flask or a concealed bottle for that extra kick.”

 

53yo memo on loyalty from Leo Burnett

 

“If any of us eats those nauseating Post Toasties or Wheaties, for example, in preference to the products of Kellogg’s, I hope he chokes on them.”

– Leo Burnett                       

 

It’s 53 years since legendary, and oft-quoted, adman Leo Burnett typed the below memo titled ‘Scratching the back of the hand that feeds you’. AdAge is reporting that the agency bearing his name sent it out a few days ago as a reminder to staff on the principles of loyalty to clients.

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Leo Burnett memo

HBO releases TV shows on iTunes store

US broadcaster HBO has made its best performing shows available for purchase and download on the Australian iTunes Store.

Shows from the US that will be available include The Sopranos, Sex and the City, True Blood, Flight of the Conchords, Greys Anatomy, Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, Lost, The Hills, House, Mad Men and Family Guy.

HBO joins programming from local providers including the ABC, Nine Network, Network TEN and Movie Extra, along with US-produced programs from The Walt Disney Company’s ABC Studios, Disney Channel, Twentieth Century FOX, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures Television and MTV Networks.

Australian shows that will also be available for download include Underbelly 2: A Tale of Two Cities, Summer Heights High and McLeods Daughters.

Twitter goes crazy with Mad Men

Due to the success of her tweets as Mad Men character Peggy Olson, PR practitioner Carri Bugbee is to establish a Twitter-based ad agency for media and entertainment companies.

The show, which has just begun screening on SBS in Australia this month, gained popularity in the US due to the buzz created through social media platforms such as Twitter.

Bugbee recently won a Shorty Award for best content producers on Twitter in the advertising category, despite undertaking the role as a fan rather than under any official Mad Men capacity.

Main character Don Draper’s Twitter account has attracted more than 7,092 followers but Bugbee’s Peggy Olson has amassed 12,623, easily beating out her boss. She also has her own LinkedIn profile.

At the beginning of the series second season, characters from the show started appearing on Twitter. Fans mistakenly thought the Twitter characters were part of an AMC marketing push on behalf of the show’s producers and when lawyers for the network asked Twitter to suspend the accounts of the characters believing there was a breach of copyright, within a week they had returned.

Bugbee believes that marketers can learn a lot from the Mad Men fan fiction, including that producers should strive to reserve the Twitter accounts for all the characters in whatever show or film they are making.

She also advises producers to overcome their need to control all aspects of their work and to use their fans to their advantage.

Bugbee now plans to build this success into an expansion of her 15-year-old business, Big Deal PR.