Mad Marketing

Geeks to inherit the Mad Men legacy

The advertising industry’s next generation will look more like Bill Gates than Don Draper, the slick creative genius who leads the fictional ad agency in Mad Men. That’s the view of Jason Goodman, co-founder of London agency Albion – and he’s already fretting about how he’s going to hire a new breed of creative geeks.

When Goodman heard Basem Nayfeh, an American technology and marketing entrepreneur, claim that “advertising is becoming an engineering discipline” it struck a chord. “The third person I ever hired was an advertising planner who had a double first in maths from Cambridge. Most ad guys are well presented, they know how to dress, they’re a bit Don Draper-like. This guy was a mess. But he was in the business for four years and made an amazing contribution. Now I’m constantly look for people in his image.”

The 41 year-old, himself a history graduate, believes the days of the advertising industry being dominated by arts and humanities graduates are numbered. “The next generation [of marketers] won’t look like it used to, aesthetically, or in terms of their CVs. Everyone in my business should know how to write [programming] code, in the same way as 50 years ago they all knew how to draw. Mashing up all forms of data gives you the insights which enable you to develop much bolder creative propositions. The craft skills to do that are those of mathematicians.”

Unfortunately for Goodman, the type of person who can build websites and analyse and interpret data – to ensure the right consumer is being targeted, for example – is more likely to be attracted to financial services or a web business than they are to an ad agency. “That slightly socially awkward person who’s comfortable writing code barely exists in my industry. My job is to attract that talent because the way they think can inform more relevant marketing.”

“It’s not enough to do a milk round, just visiting the universities at the relevant time of year. It needs to be more collaborative than that.”

One idea he’s toying with would involve forming a group with sympathetic businesses in his industry and organising work placements, lectures and, ideally, research and development partnerships between companies and interested universities.

Banana Republic and Mad Men – Great Clothes, Bad Marketing Execution

To be honest I don’t really watch much television, but I have seen several episodes of Mad Men and found it to be a really entertaining show. Part of what I enjoyed about it was the period style, and when I opened the Banana Republic mailer I felt like they’d captured it perfectly, but in a completely updated, modern way. I’m not a fashion hound by any stretch of the imagination, but if I was ever going to have a ‘signature style,’ this would be it.

That may harken back to my teenage years, when I discovered – much to my surprise – that my father actually owned a sweater and skinny ties that were ‘totally’ in style. That refined but not overdone look is something I’ve been attracted to ever since.

Where Banana Republic Missed the Boat I’m somewhat of a lazy social sharer, as I suspect are most people. I’ll happily Share to Facebook or Retweet something if you make it easy for me. But rarely am I going to go searching for a way to extend your advertising efforts.

In this case, though, I was so intrigued by the clothes (and, truthfully, by the brilliance of the marketing tie-in) that I actually went online in search of something that I could post to Facebook and/or Twitter.

Sadly, I found nothing of value. Numerous articles about how Banana Republic was going to release a Mad Men line, and a few (weak) posts on blogs about the actual launch. But nothing that really showcased the clothes in the mailer, and, oddly, nothing from Banana Republic itself. Nothing.