I hope that after that first Mad Men post some of you readers out there were intrigued enough to check the show out. (Sundays @ 10pm on AMC).

The main plot of the second episode: An American Airlines plane crashes, and now they looking to salvage more than their aircraft from Jamaica Bay, they need to salvage their image. That means a new agency. SC Accounts Director Herman “Duck” Phillips wants to drop current client, mid-sized Mohawk Airlines, to better position themselves for a pitch to American. Creative Director Don Draper disagrees, saying they should stick with Mohawk.

SC Accounts Director Herman “Duck” Phillips drops the hammer on Mohawk Airlines

SC owner Roger Sterling orders Don to find “a quiet place, but public” to notify Henry Wofford at Mohawk that the agency is dropping the account. When Don asks what kind of company Sterling Cooper is going to be, Roger comes back with, “The kind where everyone has a summer house?”

Sterling Cooper AE Pete Campbell (with wife Trudy) lost his father in the AA plane crash, but is accompanying Duck Phillips to the pitch. Strategy during crisis?

So, eROI Days readers, I pose the question to you:

Are you creating success for your small- to mid-sized clients in order to reel in the big fish? Or are you creating success for your small- to mid-sized clients in order to make them the big fish? Are BOTH options viable while avoiding a conflict of interest?

Oh yeah, and Joan is still hot so we’ll need a pic of her…

Many of you loyal eROI Days readers out there may have seen this killer show called “Mad Men” on AMC. It’s my current favorite show now that I can’t see any new episodes of “The Wire.” Mad Men just started it’s 2nd season running Sundays on AMC, so that means you all have a first season to catch up on!

The main character of Mad Men is Don Draper, the Creative Director at a mid-sized NY agency called Sterling Cooper. Draper is at the forefront of the New Frontier of the early 1960′s, where he and his colleagues deal with everything from cigarette advertising — and those pesky new studies linking smoking to lung cancer — to the 1960 presidential campaign, with the ad men at Sterling Cooper approached by advisers to Richard Nixon.

Mad Men L to R – Pete (Account Exec.), Harry (Media Buyer), Don (Creative Director), Sal (Art Director), Roger (Head of Accounts), Paul (Copywriter)

I keep on thinking about how strikingly different agency life was back in early 60′s New York compared to 2008 in Portland. It’s hard to picture Portland being this chauvinist and shallow.  How much did the scene, styles and attitudes influence their creativity? I wish I could really know how Draper weighs his numerous professional successes versus the price he has paid to be where he is. I wasn’t exactly around in 1960, but I have heard that the show is supposed to be very realistic, and I can assure you Draper’s pitches are much more realistic than Brian Kinney on Queer as Folk, where Brian would just slap SEX on a product and collect a huge check. Mad Men is deeper than that.

But why get that deep in thought when you can just stare at Joan, the Sterling Cooper secretary. I guess that could be reason enough to want to sign on as a Copywriter at good ol’ SC.

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