Jantzen was right--Don's creative was lame

[OK, I think I've waited long enough to post after Sunday's season premiere of AMC's Mad Men so this won't be a spoiler.]

As you may know, I'm a huge Mad Men fan, but. Am I the only one who found Don's creative pitch to Jantzen as lame as a one-legged reporter? "So well built, we can't show you the second floor" Really? They're turning Don into a Catskills routine? C'mon folks! It's 1964! It's a creative revolution on Madison Ave! Down the street from Time/Life, DDB was winning awards for Alka Seltzer spots with Gene Wilder, running politically incorrect (even then) print ads for Jewish Rye and coming up with auto ads so inspired that an ugly little excuse for a car from enemy territory (consigned by Hitler himself!) started flying out the doors of factories in Germany. In November 1964, a man was elected president due in part to the TV creative of a copywriter (Tony Schwartz) whose spot ran only once, but remains one of the most controversial (and persuasive) political commercials ever made.

Given opportunities for creative cross-pollination with leading madmen of his era, wouldn't a hotshot lauded for talent come up with something more intriguing than a raunchy oneliner? I know show writers meant it to be metaphor for the new agency, but the concept should also have worked as an ad. Marty Puris was willing to do an intersticial for BMW; why didn't they ask him to help brainstorm on Jantzen. He could have told them that no shop in the history of start-ups has pitched a new prospect with a single, one-page print ad. Then again, given that the mustachioed gun-toter pictured right was the actual print ad Jantzen was running in 1963, perhaps writers can't be blamed for assuming anything they came up with would be an improvement.

Hungary? Treat yourself to a sausage commercial.

Hilarious, even if you don't speak Hungarian. They don't shoot spots like this anymore. Except maybe in Bollywood.



Thanks to Laurie Gwen Shapiro for the, um, link

even the post office is going all mad men

Mad Men returns to the screen tomorrow night and you can't go anywhere in New York without being cleverly reminded of this. But how did gonzo AMC marketers get the US Post Office to synchronize its launch of Mad Men era stamps? Now you can send off that bill in the company of Ed Sullivan, Alfred Hitchcock, the Lone Ranger, Perry Mason or other stars from a golden age when social media meant watching Bonanza with your siblings and popcorn. Art director Carl Herrman of North Las Vegas, NV, designed the stamps and worked with twenty2product, a San Francisco-based studio, to give them a suitably retro look.

a lady's guide to facebook etiquette

More and more friends are migrating off Facebook. "I'm tired of being contacted by people I didn't like years ago. Why would I like them now?" one told me before closing down the account she'd had for a couple of years. Another bailed after receiving a friend request from the first person she'd fired, back in the 80s.

I'm more of a Twitter person, myself. Because I think of Facebook as the place for meeting people you used to know; Twitter for meeting those you want to know now.

But in my role as social media evangelist, I talk to plenty of FB newbies. Over 45 million signed up for Facebook in January alone. Where teenagers now make up no more than 12% of the population. In fact, the fastest growing FB demographic is women over 55. Which may be why this dandy Etiquette Guide is styled to look like a 1950s-era instructional film. (Props to YourTango.)

friday flashback: first televised presidential debate Sept. 26, 1960

If you're a Mad Men addict like I am, you know that the Nixon/Kennedy race in 1960 was supposed to be no contest. Nixon was the favorite. Kennedy was considered too young and inexperienced for thinking voters to take seriously. But then, television changed everything. 48 years ago today, 70 million US viewers tuned in to see candidates debate issues on screen for the first time. Polls showed that people who watched the debate on TV thought Kennedy won; those who listened to it on the radio declared Nixon did. Politics was never the same after that.

and speaking of young guys in the best shape of their lives: dave letterman debuts in 1982 with first guest bill murray

via gawker