Mad Men is for drama what The Office is for comedy: the show everyone is speccing right now.
I’m probably the only one out there not really interested in speccing a Mad Men but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the show itself, far from it.
Actually I found out a couple of articles that could interest people currently “researching” so to speak around the ad business.
One of them is an interview conducted by Wired with Benjamin Palmer, who is the co-founder and CEO of an award-winning interactive marketing agency (The Barbarian Group). In this interview, Palmer discusses “the show’s realism and relevance to the advertising industry today”.
Wired.com: Things aren’t going so well with Betty. Is Don Draper’s life bound to fall apart?
Palmer: The failure for him is when the nobility of commerce goes away. Back then, it was noble to own things. When you saved up enough to get a car, it meant something. It was part of the machine of American progress.
Wired.com: So he’s doomed to fail?
Palmer: Yup. His kind will go away. He’s going to become extinct. His brand of person doesn’t exist anymore.
It could be an interesting idea to deal with Draper and Sterling Cooper with a more “contemporary” look at things, but what do I know.
Anyway, other interesting articles I found around Mad Men were mainly article written by “real” ad men, like those two. Pretty interesting stuff if you ask me.
Also, don’t forget that Monday begins over in Cannes the annual MIPCOM and MIPTV, which is the place of business regarding trends in television and new media (especially this year where we have YouTube and Tudou people over there).
For the people who don’t know what the hell just is this MIPthingy, Wikipedia says it all:
It is essentially a content event for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing entertainment content. It provides the people involved in the TV, film, digital and audiovisual content, production and distribution industry a market conference and networking forum to discover future trends and trade content rights on a global level.
The Hollywood Reporter usually has good reports of what happens there if you’re interested, which you should be if you intend to work in the industry.
