An advertisement about an advertisement…
July 22, 2009 • 3:43 pm • POSTED BY ahartley
There’s an interesting article in this week’s New Yorker about the development of the advertising campaign for the 3rd season of Mad Men, which premiers August 16. (An advertising campaign that advertises a show about the tricks of advertising? How postmodern.) The campaign includes a new tag line (“The world’s gone Mad”) and a website that will promote the creation of Mad Men avatars.
The article begs the question: how do you market something to a group that spends its spare time watching a show about the marketing industry? (This is assuming that viewers are intrigued by more than the alcoholism and adultery that runs rampant through the show.)
This might be a particularly polarized example, but I think it’s very reflective of most of the advertising audience these days—a group that is hyper-aware of the conventions behind branding and advertising. Our media-savvy audience often requires a higher standard of sophistication, humor, intelligence (or, sometimes, stupidity), in order to be affected by marketing strategies. This awareness is really where the departure into non-traditional, viral, or guerilla advertising takes off, and where the line between Don Draper and the modern creative directors is drawn. Martini anyone?
