Mambo Deb:

I do not think SC is incompetent. I believe they are very good at capturing "establishment" firms business. I would guess that most ad agencies would be happy to convert 1 in 10 pitches into clients and losing clients is an inevitability. I am interested to see how SC will go after the younger market in 1964 - companies like Mattel, Pepsi, Wham-O, Bell Helicopters and products like the Ford Mustang, GI Joe/Barbie, RCA/Zenith/Philco Stereo Hi-Fi's. Kurt, Smitty, Pete and Peggy will play bigger roles landing these new clients (I predict Pete will, in fact, land North American Aviation, the manufacturer of the Apollo Command & Service modules in Season 3). Harry will also play a critical role as TV becomes the dominant media outlet. I could easily see Don going after Hertz in 1965/66 and developing the Hertz/Shelby ad campaign, which targeted younger drivers. I wonder what will happen to Roger and Bert.

I think the products chosen in Season 1 & 2 established the story line. I have previously written that "there is a tsunami of change about to hit the shores of Sterling Cooper" and the question is, who will recognize and take advantage of the events/products of 1964.

SEMI-OFF TOPIC ALERT

I know that you are new to the Mad Men Forum and you appreciate my sense of humor. This is my little way of saying thanks.

You mention the Relax-i-cisor above and I have copied this old post for your amusement (or not). The rest of you, simply ignore it and any psychoanalysis of my intent. Peace, out.

Set: The Sterling Cooper Offices

Lois Sadler (calling Peggy Olsen's direct line): Hello, Peggy? There's been a fire at your apartment.
Peggy (very earnestly): I'll be there in a jiffy!

Scene: In front of a burned out brownstone, the fire fighters and newly displaced residents congregate.

Battalion Chief: Ok folks, we think we found the source of the fire - this girdle with all the wires stickin' out of it (holds up the Relax-a-ciser).
Peggy: Actually, its the new and improved Relax-a-ciser II. (She goes into sales pitch mode) - With daily use and a sensible diet, the Relax-a-ciser II will help you lose weight, relieve stress, reduce frustration, prevent stretch marks and ease the heartbreak of psoriasis. Did I say it relieves stress?
Battalion Chief: Boy, this thing is heavy duty. It looks like you it uses 220. (volts)
Peggy: 220, 221, whatever it takes.
Father Gill shows up to comfort his flock: Peggy, may I borrow your Relax-a-ciser?
Peggy: Not now Father Gill, you're making me uncomfortable.
Father Gill: Peggy, you don't understand, this Priest gig is killin' me. If I don't do something fast, I'm gonna bust.
Peggy: Father, that's your job!
Just off set, Sally Draper has taken one of the extra Relax-a-cisers and is working with an electrician trying to hook it up to her saddle.

End of scene - all of the women of the burned out apartment are huddled around Peggy asking "where can we get one?"
Jon Hamm's narration voice over (doing his best Rod Serling imitation): Sales of the Relax-a-ciser II go through the roof in 1964. Politicians, utility executives and public safety officials blame the product for the blackout of NYC in 1965 - something about the simultaneous use on Saturday night by millions of women (and one priest) and the resulting overload of the East Coast electrical grid. The product is banned and many historians and sociologists think that this was the spark that ignited the women's rights movement.
Fade to black, roll credits, to the accompanyment of "I touch myself" by the Divinyls

So that's where my OFF-TOPIC banner went....fume...

I'm sorry, Mambo Deb.

I'd delete what I just posted if I could...didn't mean to but it's too late now....

All that bitchin' and moanin' about going off topic and WHO is the first to do so?

Very interesting topic, Mambo Deb. However, several of those accounts weren't bungled or lost, I believe. Playtex, if I remember correctly, asked for a new campaign, liked it, but chose not to use it, while asking that it be held in case they changed their mind.

I don't know how the writers choose these accounts, but I always enjoy watching the SC crew in action trying to keep or win them.

I kind of look at what advertising accounts MadMen has been dealing with by categories. Already covered:

Retail clothing, grocery, cosmetics
Transportation Mohawk Airlines
Tobacco Lucky Strike
Mfg/Industrial Bethlehem Steel

But no coverage for alcohol, pharmaceutical, automotive, entertainment or financial (i.e. banks). Since they've got a new tv media department headed by Harry , I'm excited to see this new section of the agency be represented in the episodes since television viewing was growing by leaps and bounds. I want to see how this will impact Don's creativity and SC as television becomes a burgeoning advertising medium.

Mambo Deb, very interesting question! Out of the clients you listed SC closed over half so not too incompetent.
My favorite of those was the wheel, probably because my Dad retired from Kodak and we had one of those slide projectors. Like most things lots of equipment, not too many pictures. I,like Harry, teared up during Don's presentation.
I would like to know how the writers choose the clients . Some ads like that Hertz guy flying into the drivers seat of the convertable were just so memorable.
I'm with Z , just can't wait to see what the SC crew comes up with.

I didn't see Heineken up there.

Did they land Popsicle, or was it just a pitch and no sale?

Now, z...it doesn't count if the royals go OT...remember????

; - }

I agree with PB; If the storyline stays real, this will be a time when SC realizes it has to change, and change dramatically, to survive. And all of that probably could be reflected in the types of accounts they win and lose and how they adapt to the new methods. Given SC's flirtation with Nixon in '60, wouldn't it be logical for SC to try to work on the Goldwater campaign in '64 sticking to the old print, "You Know in Your Heart He's right" slogan-style campaign while Doyle Dane comes in and cleans their clock with the little girl and the daisy commercial for LBJ that fortells the end of the world if Barry G. gets elected? And maybe the agency starts having a crisis of conscience that parallels Don's crisis of conscience. And which of the guys will be the first to grow long hair as Beatlemania hits? I Wanna Hold Your Hand debuted in the U.S. in january '64. And, jeez, they're already all so perpetually horny, what happens when the mini skirts arrive in the office? "Peggy, that's not proper business attire. Go in my office and take it off. I'll be right in."

Off Topic: And Polar and who was your inspiration for your Relaxicisor narrative? I think it was moi. Yep typical mad men attitude.... no credit to the little lady ... at least you are in character.

Interesting that I seem to remember only SC's screw-ups, not their successes. But there does seem to be a lot of emphasis on their frequently clumsy and contentious interactions with clients, like Menken's, Lucky Strike, Bethlehem Steel. It seems to me that there's a deliberate attempt to portray SC as second-rate. And fittingly so, as I think one of the themes of the series is striving, in a “class struggle” sort of way. All the characters, even the agency, are trying to grab onto something just beyond their reach. Whatever their stations in life, they’re dissatisfied and frustrated that there’s something better out there and they can’t get it.

Looking over the SC client list again, I’m struck by how unglamorous a lot of those products are. Deodorant, laxative, shoe inserts, double sided aluminum, fish sticks, Israeli Tourism, Richard Nixon. Products for people who “know their place.”

I can't remember if they landed Popsicle or not.That's one thing (maybe the only thing) about MM that bugs me, how they often spend a lot of time on pitches and creative for particular products, and then never let us see the outcome. That's probably why I only remember the bad ones.

And people, play nice on my thread! More later, I'm running late for work.

"All the characters, even the agency, are trying to grab onto something just beyond their reach. Whatever their stations in life, they’re dissatisfied and frustrated that there’s something better out there and they can’t get it."

Perfect description, Mambo Deb, it is all that stretching, striving, scratching at that prize just out of reach that makes these characters so interesting
to watch.

One scene from MM that sticks in my mind is the SC crew, all spit and polished, lined up in the conference room with their AA campaign all ready for presentation, confident and raring to go. I actually felt like one of them when Duck let the air out of their balloon - such a let down. Frustration and anger. No wonder they drink. I bet they were all a little snockered by the time they left that day.

"Take it, break it, share it, love it."

great slogan, I'd have bought it.

Speaking of Popsicle, here is something I wrote awhile back (some of my recent original material has caused quite the ruckus and too all of you who have had to endure all it, I apologize).

6. Peggy Olsen, concerned that her luck with Vatican Roulette may run out, decides to use a diaphragm. She is so happy with her Pfizer diaphragm, she wants to bring the pharmaceutical company on as a client. Her pitch includes artwork with a young, successful modern woman, whose head is surrounded by a halo and her arms outstretched with a diaphragm in one hand and spermicide in the other. The tag line is “Roll it. Spermicide it. Insert it. Love it!”. The rep from Pfizer says that the ad “looks familiar” and Ken Cosgrove deadpans, “Yea, it’s the Popsicle ad”.

Tying the above satire with this topic, I am curious as to how Sterling Cooper will take advantage of the sexual revolution. I, for one, would be interested to see PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines) become a client of SC. PSA turned traditional airline travel on its head with its single stewardesses and go-go boots. I wonder which of the copywriters will come up with the tag line "PSA gives you a lift!". Peggy thinks sex sells so she's my choice.

“Those people in Manhattan? They are better than us. They want things they haven’t seen.”

This quote from Season 1 seems a perfect fit with your description of the the Sterling Cooper folks, Mambo Deb.

Thanks, Zerelda. I had forgotten that line. It really is a perfect fit.

.....I realize this thread is basically dead, but wasn't the Popsicle campaign a big hit in the presentation? Again, the memory is fading but wasn't that the turning point for Peggy in terms of her handling things on her own, and making them fly? Thus giving her the courage to ask for Freddy's office.....? I would assume that means she got the account for SC.....