"Mad Men" -- *Final* Season Official Thread (possible spoilers) (part 2)

Apple used to do it all the time. Remember those wonderful black & white stock photos of John and Yoko, Ghandi, Hitchcock, Miles Davis and others for their Think Different Campaign ? We loved them but they really just sold computers.

 

I can imagine a copywriter sitting at his desk and coming up with an ad that both promotes an ideal that he/she believes in and would be a brilliant promotion for a client's product. A win-win he naively thinks. But no, the folks on SHV forum would not approve as promoting an ideal only counts if there is no product connection.

 

Well, speaking for myself, it's not that I would approve or disapprove; I would classify it as propaganda and therefore not worthy of my attention.

 

With the perspective offered from a week's distance, the series conclusion seems even dumber now. Not just Don's advertising Nirvana Coke commercialization, not just Dick Whitman getting away with it, but Don spending that hour floating around the hippie encampment. I agree with what many have mentioned here: the show was strongest when exploring conflicts within the agency. Stuff like dealing with Betty's parents got real old real fast. Weiner could have scripted a much more interesting conclusion by bringing Don back, after he had his little revelation, to deal with Hobart.

 

If you actually agree with the propaganda, is it so bad? There's a thousand commercials worse than the Coke "Teach the World" spot. For example, any cigarette commercial or any infomercial is gonna be worse. I also have no problem with glamor/beauty commercials, like the series of Chanel #5 spots that have been out for years. Those are stunning enough to make me stop what I'm doing and watch them... even though I'm not their intended audience. There's a way to enjoy commercials as entertainment when the creativity goes above a certain plateau... which probably 95% of most commercials never achieve.

I think it's a commercial that deliberately sought out the liberal, under-30 audience of the time and tried to say, "hey, we're selling Coke but we're also with you on the hope that the world can live in peace and harmony." And this meant something at a time thousands of young men were being killed in Vietnam.

BTW, this Coke commercial actually followed a similar 1969 Pepsi lifestyle commercial, "Big Town USA," which showed very little of the product but emphasized energetic people running around NYC:



I think Coke was very taken aback by this aggressive Pepsi ad, which deliberately went after the cool, hip, happening crowd. I think the 1971 "Teach the World" campaign was meant to make Coke hip again, and it scored major points at the time.

 

It's not bad at all, for what it is; but when it's about selling sugar water, or scented water, even if I might have sympathy with the "message", it's hard to take seriously as art.

On the other hand, it's difficult to argue that advertising and art are mutually exclusive; for example, there are many advertisement posters for drinks, movies, and even communism from the early 20th century that are unquestionably artistic, even though their primary purpose was to sell a particular product or idea.

Coleridge said, with respect to writing fiction, "... my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith".

So, ultimately, one's aesthetic judgement may in part depend upon whom one trusts. Because I judge his motives to be pure, I'm willing to suspend disbelief and have faith in the poet; but not the preacher, not the politician, not the ad man. This may be a failure of objectivity on my part.

 

I work in Marketing, where it's generally accepted that emotional appeals are more persuasive than rationale.

Classic rational appeal: It's Toasted
Classic emotional: The Real Thing

Don's character arc in a nutshell?

 

I think it's no more or less art than a 3:00 minute rock hit. Pop art can go across a wide range of media, and I'd say beyond a certain level, even commercials can hit a level of artistic accomplishment. It ain't a DaVinci painting, but it's also not a goat turd.

 

Wow, reading this last page and I realise everyone read the ending completely differently to me.


I read it that Don got a moment of inner peace and might take up meditating in the future. Also that he stayed retired from the advertising game. The Coke ad at the end was just to show how the industry developed without him.

 

That's how I first read it. Of course in standard Man Men fashion, more is always read into what gets outright protrayed. Given Draper's past history, he would not necessarily rush back with the BIG idea. He might however have called Peggy who drew up the rough frame-by-frame beat sheet as shown in the scene with Stan at the typwriter, and pitched it to the client. I think back to the line that Pete said to her. I paraphase: "One day people will be talking about the fact that they got to work for/with you". This could be the ad that finally get's her the recognition she prizes.

 

Andy laughs....

 

My first initial response.
Draper gets nirvana.
The world gets a coke.

I vacillate, however, between these analyses

 

I didn't feel that Don had crafted the ad either. But Weiner has said that he meant that Don created the ad. Disappointing.

 

I've never seen that Pepsi ad. Lots and lots of interracial actors in there. Other than the dated style of course, this could've been shot today. BTW, this is the same year that "Midnight Cowboy" that brilliantly made NYC look worse than the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. During the day and with a Pepsi it was a fine place to raise a family!

dan c

 

Between Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver, I think the two scared me away from ever wanting to live in NYC. Great to visit.

 

I remember all the hoopla when Britney Spears did Pepsi ad.

Commercials are big time stuff.

 

Or Michael Jackson when his star was burning bright...

 

I see what ya did there.

 

I immediately KNEW that Don had created the Coke ad the second they put it on the screen. The writers gave you all the mental dots for the viewer to connect to guide you to that conclusion. I'm puzzled as to how anyone could NOT think Don created the ad.
I mean after all those clues, what did you think the ad was doing in the episode??

1) Peggy goes out of her way to tell Don on the phone "Dont You Want To Work on Coca Cola"? This is the equivelant of an establishing shot in a movie. It puts the seed in both the viewers head, and Dons head about how he'd approach an ad for Coke.

2) The Hug Don gave the guy symbolized that Don realizes that people need understanding, compassion and unity. As an Advertising guy through and through he realizes exploiting this in an ad will sell a product.

3) During the final meditation scene, notice that Don is shaved, showered, cleaned up, etc. This has been a symbol the entire series. Don has "woken up" from his mental issues, dealt with them internally and is on his way back to real life, which he knows now, means the advertising world.

4) The Smile. This says it all. At this moment, Don knows the direction of his next great ad.........Unity With All People, Peace, Understanding .

If you watched the series all these years you know how the writers gave you dots to connect. This finale was no different.

 

I hear what you are saying. I didn't WANT Don to create that ad. I don't feel the same way about the "brilliance" of the ad that others do. And my mind KNOWS Don did not create that ad, a real person did. So I prefer to think that the ad is just a postrcript to end the series on a contemporaneous note.

I know that Weiner wants me to come to the conclusion Don created the ad, I just don't feel (based on my sense of Don having watched every episode of the series several times) he did. My take, I'm allowed.

 

Of course you are. Its a TV show.

However, to present the other side of the coin, I think its obvious that the whole series boiled down to this:

Don was this complicated, insecure, sad person who happened to have this one great talent:
He knew how to manipulate Human emotion. And thats why he was so incredibly successfull at Advertising. That was his lifes calling. And, it follows logically, that HE'D be the one guy to come up with one of the greatest commercials ever made. To me, the ending of Don creating the coke commercial was Dons life coming full circle. Thats exactly how fate would have ended it.

 

That's your take. I don't think it's the greatest commercial ever made, and I don't think it's Draper quality if he's all that. Just my side of the coin. We can both spend it.

 

But of course.

 

What the author says outside of the text is irrelevant. If the text contains ambiguities, deliberate or accidental, the ambiguities are up for interpretation.

That was a talented group of writers, and I am quite sure that the ending was deliberately designed to promote different interpretations.

 

I hope Peggy comes up with the "Take the Pepsi Challenge" ads of 10 years later. ( I hate Coke)