Another week of Mad Men has brought us a new crop of advertising-themed ads. The commercial spots on this show represent a great opportunity to reach a smart and sophisticated viewership — after all, advertising is already on everyone’s mind. Given that, the knowing wink has got to be the modus operandi for brands in this setting. Anything else feels…jarring. But as we’ve found out, this isn’t easy to pull off.
Dove’s spot, for example, felt a little one-dimensional. By mimicking the style of Mad Men, they grab the viewer’s attention, but the message itself felt disingenuous. Two ad men are going back and forth about how to market Dove, when a female secretary chimes in about how smooth it makes her skin feel. It’s too self-conscious Norman Rockwell cheese, not enough Don Draper cool. They did get the era right, and I, for one, hit ‘play’ on my DVR remote. Verdict: post advertising in form, but not content. Head over to AdAge for a stream of it.
Clorox’s spot, structured more like a print ad (a slow, deliberate zoom-out on a crisp, white shirt), managed to ooze sex in a subtle, Mad Men era way, and the cinematography had me convinced we had returned from commercial break. Was it politically incorrect? Yeah. A little off brand too. But eye-catching. Here’s a still:
Quick, but important tangent: how does lip stick even end up on a collar? In the course of impassioned adultery, sure, I understand how this might happen, but I’m bewildered as to how this became such a common trope. Never made any sense to me. Okay, maybe I’m all alone on this one.
Then there is BMW, who have really showed the way as far as all this ad-on-ad action goes. Their spots are meta (ads about the history of their own marketing campaigns), but they are also nostalgic, elegant, and tasteful.
As for the show beyond the ads: PULL IT TOGETHER, DON! Really. Are we supposed to believe that the illusion of family life was propping you up to such an extent? At the very least, I suppose it was helping you maintain appearances (and forcing you to flee the city at a somewhat reasonable hour). We know you’re struggling right now, but this pitiful, emotional rock bottom thing is really unbecoming. It’s borderline schtick at this point. And now you’re making rookie mistakes, like, uh, sleeping with secretaries you aren’t even attracted to. But perhaps viewers find sad sack divorced Don “more relatable” than the previous incarnation of our protagonist? Let us know in the comments.
A tip of the hat to Peggy for recognizing that their work isn’t “all about the client.” She is right when she says that you can’t let them get in the way of great work. Ultimately, this relationship is built on compromise — just like life is a balance of “what I want versus what’s expected of me.”
As usual, you can find a full rundown about the real life products and campaigns from the episode over at The Awl.
