Mad Men is Back

The most anticipated TV show of the year, Mad Men, is back and better than ever. It's 1964, a year since we last saw the cast, and Don Draper is divorced and a partner in a re-formed advertising agency. Many of the old characters are back, but some real favorites - Sal I am thinking of you - have not resurfaced. Don's wife, Betty, is remarried, but she is yet to move out of the house she and Don shared with their two kids, which is a major stress point. Meanwhile Don has moved into a bachelor pad in Greenwich Village. He is finding dating is hard work and is satisfying he needs with a prostitute, that he likes to have slap him around a little.


The most intriguing element of the show is the rise of the creative advertising agency. As a partner in the new agency, Don has more say over the creatives role in running the agency and in one of the best scenes of the first show, he runs off a potential client for being too prude; as he leaves the room, he says, "now you've seen how a creative agency works, I hope you liked looking in the window." This is where Executive Producer Matthew Weiner does his best work, getting the details right. In most TV shows and movies, it is obvious the writer has no idea how an ad agency works. Weiner has nailed it. This was also a great time for advertising; they are moving out of the boring 1950's play it safe mode, to the more liberated 1960's, where creativity and risk taking really start to take off. We are also seeing the split between large, staid agencies like Y&R and upstart creative shops. What I love most is that they use real agency names and real clients that still exist.

But, as one of the founders of Wieden+Kennedy, David Kennedy, said to me when I recommend he watch the show, "this is not a show about advertising, it's a soap opera." He loved the details of the ad world, but like most of us it's the real world tensions that keep the show going. 1964 should be an interesting year.