“Mad Men” revels in 1960, and Jack Daniel’s
Posted: Thursday, July 19, 2007 12:30 AM by Allison Linn
Filed Under:
Alcohol, Entertainment
“Mad Men,” a new TV show about an advertising firm from cable network AMC, is set in 1960 amid a haze of smoke and booze that’s meant to reinforce the authenticity of the series.
The retro atmosphere also provides a convenient foil for pitching Jack Daniel’s, whose sponsorship of the 13-episode first season includes plans to feature the brand by name in three forthcoming episodes.
Yet you won’t hear the words “Jack Daniel’s” in the first episode, which premieres Thursday. Instead, unlabeled bottles of brown liquid adorn every office credenza, and when the characters are done drinking in their offices they head out to a favorite watering hole to order more of the same.
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Arlene Manos, president of national advertising sales for AMC parent Rainbow Media, said the Jack Daniel’s sponsorship was a natural because drinking whiskey was so common in the early 1960s era. But while the show actively pursued the sponsorship, they didn’t want the product placement to overwhelm it.
“If we had one in every episode, that would be too much,” she said.
In an age when more and more people are using digital video recorders to skip those pesky commercials, it’s not surprising that a company like Jack Daniel’s would want to build its brand into the actual show. Elsewhere, everything from car brands to soda cans are popping up in television shows with increasing frequency.
The surprising part is that a company would want to promote itself through the characters in “Mad Men.”
Great television is filled with men and women who are morally questionable yet charismatic – you may not want to live Tony Soprano’s life, but you might well copy his drink order.
In “Mad Men,” the character who is supposed to be most sympathetic can ask a prospective client why she didn’t choose an ad firm with more people like herself (read: Jews), and then storm out of a meeting after telling her that he won’t let a woman talk to him like she did. Later, by way of apology, he’ll take her out for a drink and ask her why she doesn’t do something really fulfilling: get married and make babies. Apparently, in 1960, none of this was enough to lose the possible account.
The show’s characters are so one-dimensionally distasteful, and so eager to embrace the sexism and bigotry of the era at the expense, even, of an engrossing plot, that it’s hard to find anything alluring about them.
Click here for show details.
