Your (Updated) Guide to 'Mad Men' and Advertising History

Stay on top of the news around fictional and real life Mad Men with an Ad Age Membership: You can save 27% off our basic rate and get a free gift today. "Mad Men" is back for seven more episodes to cap off the 85 so far, completing an arc that began in 2007 for us and in 1960 for Don Draper and Peggy Olson. And we're back, too, with our our final seven recaps by Matthew Creamer, more looks back at real Ad Age headlines from the era and the conclusion of our revealing, award-winning "Real Mad Men Diaries" video series, featuring interviews with the women and men who were really there -- and know what Don really could have gotten away with. Keep checking back for updates. Season Seven, Part Two Recap: Homesick What will I miss most about "Mad Men"? The fact that each and every episode felt like it was taking a stab at perfection and every once in a while it succeeded. One of those times is "Lost Horizon." Interview: Matthew Weiner Takes on an Era, the Ad Industry and TV The time was "more adult and dirty and darker than you remember," the creator of "Mad Men" told Ad Age in an expansive interview as the show approached its climax. "Mad Men" 2025: Ad Leaders Predict the Future of the Industry As "Mad Men" brings its epic look back at agency life in the 60s and 70s to a close, we asked today's agency leaders what "Mad Men" would look like if it were set in the future -- specifically 10 years from now. The Real 'Mad Men' Diaries: Howie Cohen Video: "The best lines come out of real life. You catch one, you shine a light on it and you put it in the right situation." McCann Makes Coke Pants, Celebrates Miller Win: Real Ad Age Headlines From 1970 While he vacationed in England, McCann-Erickson Chicago VP Richard Irwin also acted as "official courier" to present the Bunny of the Year at the London Playboy Club. The Real 'Mad Men' Diaries: Would Mary Wells Have Hired Don Draper? Video: Advertising's most powerful woman probably would have passed. Recap: I Drink Your Milkshake!Goodbyes begin for major characters in the second episode of the final half season. My Mom Was a Mad Man: How Carol Muehl Left a Legacy for Female Copywriters In 1960, a Detroit kid named Carol Calloway graduated from the University of Michigan with an English major, a dance minor and a powerful desire to make money. A book excerpt. Burnett Quits Entering Awards, Media Director Turns Bikini Model: Real Headlines From "Mad Men" Days Our archives from the "Mad Men" era continue to turn up oddities and news we might rather forget. The Real 'Mad Men' Diaries: Was There Really That Much Sex in the Office? Our video series returns to say there was probably even more sex in the office in real life than on the show. We're looking at you, Y&R. Recaps Return: Missed Flights "Mad Men" takes us to April 1970, though you might only be able to tell if you know a scary lot about L'eggs. Seven Things to Watch for in the Final Seven Episodes of 'Mad Men' We're probably about to dive deep into the Me Decade. Let's hope Sally Draper gets out okay. As AMC Says Goodbye to 'Mad Men,' It Says Hello to Millennials For both AMC and marketers, the impact of the show is expected to resonate long after the finale. Share Your Facebook Photos in Don Draper's Carousel Pitch From 'Mad Men' AMC's excellent social-media promotion will either trigger deep nostalgia or embarrass you. Thanks AMC! New York restaurants' promotional "Mad Men" lunch menus are mostly booze. The Real 'Mad Men' Diaries: Roy Eaton An Advertising Hall of Famer who broke the color barrier doesn't see much progress in industry diversity. The Real 'Mad Men' Diaries: Jane Maas The former Ogilvy creative wonders, "Did I really write that drivel?" The Real 'Mad Men' Diaries: Judy Wald Behind all those famed male creatives, there was a powerful woman recruiter. All the Real 'Mad Men' Diaries Our Neal Award-winning video series exploring the big names and campaigns of the '60s and '70s. Season Seven, Part One 'Mad Men' Mid-Season Finale Recap: The Best Things in Life Good vibes (more or less) as the show breaks until its final act. Brands Jump on Moon Landing, Pregnancy Detector Debuts and Other Real 'Mad Men' Era News Ad Age headlines from 1969 (and beyond). Chiat Pushes for Equality, Revlon Plans Men's Genital Deodorant: Real 'Mad Men'-Era News See what was making Ad Age headlines while Don, Peggy and company were trying to figure out family (and the Burger Chef pitch) as the first half of the season came to a close. Recap: A Happy Family "The Strategy" plays a lot with alternative ideas of family, even the kind of family created by Burger Chef. The Real 'Mad Men' Diaries: Bob Kuperman In the second in our series on the real Mad Men of the show's era, Bob Kuperman almost passed on the opportunity to be part of one of adland's hottest agencies, DDB, and most-salivated over accounts, VW. "I told Ben, 'Well, I'd like to take the weekend to think it over,'" recalls Mr. Kuperman today with a chuckle. "And Ben said, 'Do you realize there's a line out the door to work here?'" If he hadn't come aboard, the classic VW commercial "1949 Auto Show" might never have been. Research Shows Long Client Lunches Are Actually Worth It: See classic Ad Age headlines from the "Mad Men" era. The Real 'Mad Men' Diaries: Keith Reinhard In the first of a video series on the real Mad Men of the 1960's and 70's, Keith Reinhard recalls landing McDonald's for Needham Harper & Steers and coming up with "You Deserve a Break Today." Recap: Technophobia When Michael Ginsberg was introduced the agency's first Jew, we were set up for the show to grapple a bit with Madison Avenue's -- and by extension American culture's -- history of anti-Semitism. This season, though, the quirky writer has slid into mental illness, only accelerated by the installation of a mainframe computer in Sterling Cooper & Partners. Read Matthew Creamer's recap. "Mad Men" Throwback Thursday: Real Ad Age News From May 1969 Including the classic headline "Creative Folk Strut, Talk to Selves." Details here. Recap: Cosmic Disturbance When a drunk Don encounters the agency's computer installer, he sounds like he's listened to "Sympathy for the Devil" one too many times. "You talk like a friend but you're not … You go by many names." Read the recap. "Mad Men" Throwback Thursday: Real Ad Age Headlines From April 1969 Ad Age used to conduct annual surveys of adland obituaries to calculate how long you were surviving. That and other discoveries here. Recap: MadTech "We need to invest in a computer, period," Jim Cutler tells his partners at Sterling Cooper & Partners as they decide what to do about Don. "Not in creative hijinks." Read the recap. "Mad Men" Throwback Thursday: More Real Headlines From 1969 Ogilvy really did win Hershey, Quaker targeted the "ghetto" and more. See what Ad Age was covering during the final season of "Mad Men." Check out actual advertising headlines from January 1969. Agency's Odd Ad for Itself During "Mad Men" Wasn't Even Its Weirdest The spot, which ran in the Chiacgo area, seems like a crossover between AMC's adland show and its zombie hit "The Walking Dead." But the agency behind it has done stranger work. Watch it here. Recap: Chewed Up and Spit Out In which the show simultaneously finds a villain who makes Don look good by comparison and brings race back to the fore. Read the recap. "Mad Men" Throwback Thursday: Real Ad Headlines From the Days of the Final Season The return of "Mad Men" found Don Draper watching Richard Nixon become president. Check out actual advertising headlines from January 1969, courtesy of the Ad Age archives. Does Woodford Reserve's Bourbon Ad Liberate or Discriminate? Woodford Reserve bourbon debuted its first-ever TV campaign during AMC's "Mad Men" on Sunday night. And by Monday morning, the Brown-Forman-owned brand was already dealing with charges that the debut ad is sexist. Critics missed the point, Brown-Forman said. Premiere Recap: Out in the Cold We know that the show's seventh and final season will be about rising up out of the depths. The question before us: Just how painful can purgatory be, especially when there's no booze to numb it? Matthew Creamer's recaps return. AMC's "Mad Men" Premieres Down in Viewers "Mad Men" came back with a strong episode but a weaker audience than the premiere a season earlier. Numbers here. See Our Favorite (Real) Ads From the Final Season of "Mad Men" From American Tourister to Volkswagen, check out the work that closed out one decade and opened another. 15 great campaigns here. Do You Have Your "Mad Men" Drinking Game Ready? Simon Dumenco tries to remember what the show is about but knows it has something to do with drinking. Prepare. AMC Will Hold Back Ad Time in the Last "Mad Men" as Long as Possible TV networks typically sell commercial time far ahead of time, but AMC Networks President Charlie Collier thinks he can get way more money by waiting until the last second. Read Jeanine Poggi's report. Season Six Finale Recap: Goodbye to All That The sixth season of "Mad Men" was bookended by a pair of brutally honest moments with unsuspecting clients. Read Matthew Creamer's final recap of the season. Introducing SC&P Life is all about compromise. The naming of this unholy union was no different. Read the recap Betty's Back When Betty and Don end up playacting husband and wife at an event for Bobby's summer camp, you have to suspend some disbelief. Read the recap Need for Speed That the electrifying opening -- a dark, tight, frantic shot of Ken Cosgrove, a speeding car, a gun -- was not even the strangest moment in "The Crash" tells you just how bizarre it was. Read the recap Don Is Not My Co-Pilot Don doesn't drink blood -- at least not yet -- but last night was an object lesson in how the 1968 version of Don Draper wields power in the office and out. What was once slick and attractive is now boorish and bleak. Read the recap SCDPCGCWTF?!: What Should the New "Mad Men" Agency Be Called? There may be a new agency arriving on the scene, giving us an opportunity to kick around likely names with Jane Maas, Wexley School for Girls, Walrus and others. Your turn! Size Matters For anyone who felt the sixth season was veering into the soap operatic, this episode should have been a return to form. Read the recap Yep, That's How the Ad Biz Reacted to a National Tragedy Can this episode possibly, really represent how the ad industry really dealt with such a horrifying moment? Actually, yes. Read the recap The Invisible Woman: Is 'Mad Men' Finally Taking On Race? Dawn's introduction last season, coming after that memorable racist water-balloon incident, felt like a head fake. We got that one strange night on Peggy's couch and then nothing. But now with the King assassination looming, we're getting some sense of a more developed black character. We even see Dawn outside of work twice, eating at a black coffee shop with a friend. Read the recap Trouble at SCDP? Fo' Chaough As more than one central character verges on falling apart, it's beginning to seem like the moral center of the show is over at Cutler, Gleason and Chaough. Bonus material: We've got a real Heinz-DDB presentation from 1968. Read the recap (and DDB's presentation on Heinz to the 4A's) How to Capitalize on Your Brand's Unplanned Star Turn on "Mad Men" Even after Koss got wind of its headphones' role in the "Mad Men" premiere, producers wouldn't explain the part it would play, CEO Michael Koss said. Read the article Try the "Mad Men" Rewrite Generator Think you could write "Mad Men"? Give us a noun, a verb and a job title. Fire up the rewrite machine Premiere Recap: Blue Hawaii The late 1960s are in full bloom, along with beards, mustaches and sideburns. Pot smoke flows freely. Peggy Olson leans in. Don goes way off-brief. But it begins in an emergency. Read the recap In Honor of "Mad Men"'s Return, See Our Favorite Ads From the 1960s How does the work of today compare with that of the '60s? Check out some of the classics from advertising's golden age and see how far creativity has come -- or not. See the ads Banana Republic's CMO on the Latest "Mad Men" Collection The brand is working with the show's costume designer, Janie Bryant, on its third "Man Men" collection and has introduced an online content hub themed "Mad for Mod." Read the story Season Five Finale Recap: You've Kinda, Sorta Come a Long Way, Baby With ascent sometimes comes the lowering of expectations and standards, not to mention tarred lungs and compromise.Read Matthew Creamer's recap. Defining Happiness Downward "Even though success is a reality, the effects are temporary," Don barks at a prospective big client in the season's penultimate episode, which also includes TV's first dramatic scene about agency compensation models. Read the recap So How Did Jaguar Like Its Creepy "Mad Men" Role? "I'm a big fan of the show and it was gratifying to see our brand portrayed," a Jaguar executive said. Then he added, laughing, "I would say we were fairly surprised at the turn of events." See his reaction Big Pimpin' In which "Mad Men" connects some dots amid the all-important Jaguar pitch. Read the recap Harry Krishna Don Draper's most interesting relationships have always been with the strong women who manage to parry his charm. Harry Crane, meanwhile, has gotten entangled with a Hare Krishna who goes by Mother Lakhsmi. Read the recap Sno Ball, Manischewitz and Envy Don and Betty experience asymmetrical jealousies. Plus: Have you seen this real Manischewitz commercial starring Sammy Davis Jr.? Read the recap Saved by the Bell... Jar For a show that 's yet to see a major character bite the dust, "Mad Men" is fairly steeped in death. Also this week, Cool Whip. Read the recap The Dirty City Where is Dr. Edna when you need her? 'Tis a pity that the sure-handed child psychologist hasn't been around lately for former patient Sally Draper, who witnesses a potentially psyche-destroying scene. Read the recap The Orange Sherbet Acid Test Though we wouldn't have guessed it, Don Draper is all in when it comes to Howard Johnson's. He's, like, a huge fan. Read the recap Not Pete Campbell's Favorite Episode of "Mad Men" One-third of the way into the new season, Pete gets lessons in morality (from Don Draper) and conference room brawling (from Lane Pryce). Read the recap Maybe We Should All Crawl Under the Bed Fear in "Mad Men" has usually trickled down from big historical events, most memorably the Cuban Missile Crisis. But this episode finds fear becoming more of an inescapable part of everyday life. Also: Does Roger Sterling do anything at the office any more? Read the recap Rolling Stones' Rice Krispies Commercial and the Return of Betty Creativity , in the "Mad Men" universe of 1966, is in flux. The opening salvos of the revolution heralded by Bernbach's self-consciously straight-shooting ads for Volkswagen have been turned cliche, as Peggy shows when she holds up a minimalist ad for toilet paper and says "If I see one more Volkswagen ad with something else in it..." Read the recap "Mad Men" Is Great Art, Not Such Great TV Business Despite its focus on the selling of corporate America, "Mad Men" does more for art than it does for commerce, TV Editor Brian Steinberg argues. Read the column Season Five Premiere Gets Show's Biggest Audience Yet The show's return drew 3.5 million viewers, a bigger audience than any previous episode got. That's still a smaller audience than many shows get on broadcast TV or even some big cable networks. Read the story Premiere Recap: What You Missed on "Mad Men" Last Night The show's season five debut featured racial irresponsibility, intra-agency rivalry and a randy "Zou Bisou Bisou." And then there was Pryce acting strangely. Read the recap See All the Retro Ads in Newsweek's "Mad Men" Issue Brands including Allstate, Lincoln, Tide, Mercedes-Benz, British Airways, Johnnie Walker, Benetton and Spam revived "Mad Men"-era styles for an issue of Newsweek marking the show's return with throwback design. The Johnnie Walker ad and one starring Smokey the Bear actually ran in the 1960s. But most of the ads temporarily revived their brands' old look -- sometimes with anachronistic winks, like the one suggesting a visit to the brand's website "in 47 years." See all the ads What Miniskirts Will Mean: Your Need-to-Know on "Mad Men" Season Five In which we peer through the window at the new season, identifying the big questions, likely themes and potentially big accounts in play. But don't click here if you're still catching up on season four. Read the story "Mad Men" Reading List: Catch Up On the Characters and the Culture One of the things we love about "Mad Men" is how thoroughly accurate the show is about the era. If you don't want to miss the references, you may appreciated these suggested readings, from "The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook" to "The Feminine Mystique." Read the story Q&A: Vincent Kartheiser Is Nothing Like His "Mad Men" Character Pete Campbell He's a minimalist who grew up without a TV. And despite Hollywood's reliance on publicity, he has no Facebook page and might not be sure how to pronounce "Twitter." Read the interview. Video: Sex and Work on Madison Avenue in the "Mad Men" Era Jane Maas, a creative director at Oglivy & Mather during the "Mad Men" era, talked to Ad Age Agency Editor Rupal Parekh about navigating a overwhelmingly male workplace. Young & Rubicam was the real "hotbed of sex," she said. Watch the video "Many a Grateful Widow": New York Life Ads in "Mad Men" Days and Today New York Life's main marketing goals haven't changed much, but the way it talks to consumers certainly had to. Watch the video Video: Droga on "Mad Men": They Dressed Better, But Things Are More Interesting Now There were great ads in the 1960s -- including a VW commercial and an Alka-Seltzer spot set in a prison, both excerpted in this video -- but all the fragmentation, pressure and chaos today are set to forge a new golden age, Droga5 Creative Chairman David Droga said in this interview with Ad Age Editor Abbey Klaassen. "Out of the chaos is going to emerge a stronger, brighter industry," he said. Watch the video Controversy Brews Over Ads for New Season of "Mad Men" Just weeks before the long-awaited fifth season of AMC's "Mad Men," a promotional campaign for the hit show sparked controversy as some said it evokes images of 9/11. Ads on buildings, phone booths and elsewhere depict a man wearing a suit stenciled in black as he falls through the sky against a stark white background. Read the story Who's a Coward When It Comes to Race, "Mad Men" Writers or the Ad Industry? "Mad Men" has previously come under fire for not addressing the issue of race -- or not addressing it in a manner that 's to critics' liking. But a pair of Slate articles argued that the show portrays race relations in the industry at the time. "It's a show about advertising," Slate said. "And it is advertising, not 'Mad Men,' that is written by cowards." Read the story True Tales and Cocktails with the Real Mad Men and Women of Madison Avenue There's a wealth of buzz about the new season of Mad Men and its depiction of the industry's past, but reporter Rupal Parekh got to hang out with the real thing: legendary advertising folks from the era. Read the story It's Time for "Mad Men" to Play "Moneyball" It was strangely appropriate that the movie shown to thousands of ad-industry execs flying United, Continental and American to CES was "Moneyball," the story of Billy Beane's use of data to compete with the Yankees. Read the story Why "Mad Men" Needs More Advertising, Not Less Tongues were aflutter over the inevitable delay in getting the fifth season of "Mad Men" up and running on AMC. One issue: AMC wanted to shorten the time allotted to content and devote those minutes to advertising. Was that really so unreasonable? Read the story What Does Roger Sterling (OK, John Slattery) Think of Advertising? Piers Morgan, the successor to the "Larry King Live" time slot on CNN, was hoping to tackle sexism in the ad industry during his Q&A panel at Advertising Age's Media Evolved Conference in New York. Luckily, his interview subject was John Slattery, aka "Mad Men's" Roger Sterling, "arguably the most sexist character on television." Read the story Unilever Breaks Multibrand "Mad Men" Blitz Despite the show's comparatively low ratings and modest ad revenue, package-goods behemoth Unilever is making a big bet on AMC's "Mad Men" with the launch of a marketing blitz for six of its iconic brands: Dove, Breyers, Hellman's, Klondike, Suave and Vaseline. Read the story An evolving industry Season 4 recaps from Matthew Creamer

Your (Updated) Guide to 'Mad Men' and Advertising History

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