The workplace communication of the ad men on 'Mad Men'

November 8, 12:42 PMSF Workplace Communication ExaminerKenya McCullum

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“Mad Men”, which ends its third season tonight, is an entertaining look at the glamour of 1960s advertising. But is it a realistic portrayal of what the industry was back then? According to ad men who worked during that era, the show does in many ways paint an accurate picture of the business.

Michael Grossman, who began his advertising career around 1966, remembers the industry being a hotbed of creativity and off-the-wall ideas—many of which he likens to the highly-creative television advertisements that you would find during the Super Bowl in the 1990s.

“The sixties and seventies were a period of some pretty wild advertising—some of it was creative and excellent, and some of it was off the wall and not very intelligent,” he said. “You had companies just spending all of their money on goofy ads nobody could understand. The sixties and early seventies paralleled that period where creative departments really broke lose and an awful lot of nonsense was shoved down the client’s throat.”

The ad men of the sixties may have shoved ideas down their clients’ throats, but the same certainly did not hold true of alcohol. As “Mad Men” depicts, the three-martini lunch was far from uncommon and people in the industry took wining and dining quite seriously.

“I was shocked, as a young account executive and a young copywriter in the very early days of my advertising career, to see clients drink three or four strong martinis and then go back to work at two or three in the afternoon,” said Grossman. “I was wondering how in God’s name they could function knowing there was no way I could if I drank like that.”

Equally prevalent in the advertising industry was the laissez-faire attitude about smoking in the office—although according the one industry veteran, tobacco may not have been the substance of choice.

“The only difference for me is when I got into advertising in 1964, we were smoking something a bit more potent than Lucky Strikes,” said Hank Wasiak of The Concept Farm. “I bet as the show progresses, that will probably come up in some of those episodes.”

Unlike the episodes of “Mad Men,” what you usually did not find in the advertising agencies of the sixties was the courage to stand up to clients. Rarely did you find a Don Draper type of employee who was willing to tell a client anything other than what they wanted to hear.

“The name of the game was to keep the client happy. That was more important than anything else,” said Grossman. “It was a competitive environment. It was hard enough to get clients, so you did whatever you could to keep the client happy.”

Part Two: The workplace communication of the ad men on 'Mad Men' (continued)

Related Reading:
The Sterling Cooper effect: How 'Mad Men' has changed contemporary advertising
'Mad Men' and advertising today: Would Don Draper still like the industry?

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