Jim Stingl, the accomplished and insightful columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and one of the few really good writers left at the paper, wrote a perspective on “Mad Men” last week, the iconic, multi-Emmy winning series on AMC that completed its fourth season Sunday night. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, “Mad Men” is a deliciously powerful drama based on the advertising business in New York in the 1960s. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It might be the most compelling hour on TV.
Jim’s article was titled: “Mad Men: Not Quite Reality TV” with the subhead: “Real-life ad execs from the ’60s and ’70s say there’s some truth, more fiction, in the show.” Unfortunately, the “real-life ad execs” worked in the Milwaukee advertising business at that time. I’m not sure Milwaukee people proved the best perspective here, to be honest. Forgive me, but sitting around drinking PBR and talking about farm equipment is a far cry from what happened on Madison Avenue.
I worked in the advertising business in New York in the latter part of the “Mad Men” era, with a high-profile client and then a big agency. For Jim to base the column on conversations with Milwaukee ad guys was like comparing Aaron Rodgers with Brett Favre in the picking-up-chicks category. (Boy, ol’ Brett has sure made us forget about Tiger Woods, hasn’t he?) The New York ad business was all about big brands, big budgets, big agencies and big egos. Big egos did big things on Madison Avenue. And those big things make for great TV.
In “Mad Men’s” four seasons, a significant amount of attention is paid to drinking. In New York in the ’60s and ’70s, booze was a staple, and those three-martini lunches that you’ve all heard about were very real. The ad men and their hosts, either agencies taking clients or the magazine and TV station sales reps taking both, were at fancy Manhattan restaurants from noon till 3, maybe later. There was always a steak, a lot of laughs (ad men getting taken to lunch were always VERY happy) and martinis. Lots of martinis. Which made the rest of the day quite interesting to say the least though functioning wasn’t really part of the equation.
In the 1960s, there were no computers, no Internet to surf, nothing to make the time fly by. So after the martinis, the ad men went back to their offices, and after ascertaining that there were no crises to avert, a nap was in order before heading home. The higher-ups all had couches in their offices, again as reflected in the show, which made naps (and other things) quite possible.
And here’s how they got away with it: NOBODY DROVE! The entire NY ad community either cabbed it home, if they lived in Manhattan, or took the train if they lived in one of the other boroughs or in CT or NJ. So they could sleep in their offices, and then again on the way home. Not that they were any good when they got home, but at least the couple of hours detox was helpful, enough for them to be at least palatable to the wife and kids. And because they didn’t have to drive, there was no incentive to moderate.
Nothing against Milwaukee in all of this. I’ve been in the Milwaukee ad business for 19 years, and when you consider we’re the 33rd ranked market in the country, we have a far higher profile in the advertising community than you’d think. And there are some creative talents here that stack up against any ad men in the country.
There are a number of absolutes in all of this. Milwaukee, thankfully, isn’t New York. As expected, Sunday’s “Mad Men” finale left far more questions than answers. Thirteen episodes seem like way too few (even though that’s pretty standard for a season). It went by way too fast. And, the worst of all, we have to wait until August to find out what’s next.
