Like many
twitterers on this circuit, I was followed by Mad Men. At first it felt strange to receive updates from fictional characters. (
@Don_Draper:
Taking Betty to Birdland tonite to hear Coltrane or
@Peggy_Olson:
Hope Belle Jolie account is ok. Worries me actually.) But I found they integrated seamlessly into my stream of tweets (because who isn't a fictional character in cyberspace) and I began to look forward to their 140-character dispatches of daily doings and angsts circa 1962. I even began to interact with them directly, exhanging a friendly banter of girl talk with
@Betty_Draper (who promised to try Jackie's milliner at Berdorf's.)
What brilliant marketers are folks at AMC, I thought. First,
Sterling Cooper business cards as promos. Then,
wrapping the Times Square shuttle (a train Draper takes). Now, they reach outside the (tv) box again to send their characters into Twitterville, connecting with (and recruiting) fans, maximizing entertainment value of their content, pushing it further, making it even more seductive-- which will make the show more seductive to advertisers, too. Of course (thought I) folks who display masterful grasp of last century adland would prove equally conversant with present-day marketing opps.
But, alas, I was wrong. I woke up this morning to
a post from Alan Wolk reporting that most Twittering Mad accounts have been suspended. Why? No official word yet, but
MG Siegler writing for VentureBeat reports that AMC invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to convince Twitter’s support team to suspend the accounts. (As of this posting, you can still tweet
@Betty_Draper--perhaps, in keeping with sexist attitudes of the era, execs at AMC don't consider her a threat?)
I'm a content provider myself, so I understand how producers could be ruffled by others co-opting the characters they've worked hard to create. But rather than acting impetuously, hostiley, stupidly shutting down a growing opportunity to extend its fan base, shouldn't someone in marketing recognize the potential and put itinerant Mad Twitterers on the payroll, or sustain the effort in-house? Surely Don Draper would get it, if he was around. Despite the fact that, as devoted fans know, he'll be turning 79 on September 25.
UPDATE
Good news for some, annoying news for others: Nudged by
Deep Focus, AMC's digital agency of record, Man Men's' Twitter accounts have been reinstated and the cast has resumed tweets.
