Mad Mens infamous starting screen
For many years, advertising, and public relations, have gone hand in hand. Mad Men – the Emmy-winning cable TV series following a fictional advertising firm on New York’s Madison Avenue in the 1960s – premiered its final seven episodes on AMC in May 2015. Mad Men is also available for playback on Netflix.
That means it’s the last time we’ll ever get to talk about Mad Men and its impact on the advertising field. Now, I’m sure some of you read that last sentence and laughed to yourselves a little. You’re probably saying, “What could public relations professionals possibly learn from a show about a fictional philandering creative director?”
Well, a lot actually. Mad Men is known for its obsessive attention to detail and accuracy, but that attention does not stop at getting everything from the sets, to the costumes in line with the 1960s. That special attention to detail continues in a public relations career, where you must consistently be concise, not only with clients, but everyday tasks.
A successful public relations professional should have the ability to see things from their clients perspective, and also consumers perspectives. This unique skill is essential when making educated responses about your clients, and always keeping their best interest in mind. Without seeing things from altered perspectives, your work develops a skewed bias, which ultimately will hinder your success, as well as your clients. As a professional, you cannot make impulse decisions strictly based off of your own opinion. You must take all mitigating factors into consideration before acting on it.
This is where SCDP was located in Mad Men
Season 4, Episode 1, is titled “Public Relations”. This episode accurately depicts the importance of public relations, and when it is used effectively, how significant a clients outcome can change; especially brand equity within consumers. Don Draper uses public relations as a tool to help his advertising firm overcome a difficult merger. Without public relations, Don would not have been able to convince the public, nor his clients that their business was in a state of stability. Ultimately, without proper use of public relations, their advertising firm SCDP would have fallen under.
Whilst this show was based off the 1960’s it sets the tone for a public relations professional, and the direct correlations between that, and advertising extremely articulately. For those interested in a public relations field, the job duties entailed, and the ambiance that comes a long with it, Mad Men can definitely provide accurate insight. Between press releases, client lunches, and interviews with journalists, Mad Men finally brought the public relations recognition that was long overdue to television.
In the future, it will be interesting to see what shows incorporate public relations concepts, and which shows do public relations justice. With this career choice growing in demand each and every single day, public relations will soon be a force to be reckoned with. Would you jump in on the action?
Does a public relations career, have to be correlated with advertising?
A public relations career definitely does not have to be associated with advertising. You can join the public sector, crisis management, or many other branches of public relations including: account managers, strategists, and analysts. Finding a public relations career that best suits you is important to determining long term success, and complacency within your job. If you are not happy doing what you do, it will be evident by your co-workers, as well as your clients.
Written by: Nicholas Frape
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