The Best Show You’re Not Watching; Might Teach You How to Make the Perfect Pitch
By Kyle Austin
By Kyle Austin
My favorite show on TV right now is “Mad Men” on AMC, which returns with Season Two on Sunday, July 27th. There I got my shameless plug out of the way. The Golden Globe winning show (It should garner several Emmy nods on July 17th) that still plays host to a relatively small audience because of its home on AMC, chronicles the “Golden Age” of 1960′s advertising.
The show’s star Donald Draper (played by Jon Hamm) is the Creative Director and Partner at the fictional 1960′s Madison Avenue shop “Sterling Cooper.” Throughout the first season Draper illustrates an aptitude for pulling ideas out of thin air to win over his prospective clients during presentations. However, the Season 1 finale really provided us with Draper’s “Kodak Moment.”
In the clip embedded above (Update: YouTube disabled embedding of clip) , Draper is asked to fit Kodak’s new “Wheel” slide projector into its product marketing and a potential advertising campaign. I’ll let you judge for yourself; but let’s just say it leads to one of his colleagues leaving the room in tears and the Kodak executives left to pick their jaws off the floor.
That’s followed by the classic line from the Head of Accounts Duck Phillips (played by Mark Moses):
“Good luck at your next meeting.”
Yes, it’s a little over-the-top Hollywood dramatization, but tell me it isn’t the pitch we all dream of? If only Madison Avenue was this relevant today…..
1 comment July 11th, 2008
