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.

 “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!”