Ironically Pete's idea became what cig advertising ended up as. The Marlboro Man and whatnot, rugged/dangerous individualism. The idea that cigs might be dangerous became part of the appeal. Talking about the Freudian death wish took it too far, but his idea wasn't entirely bad.
@@offensivearch Yeah, its all fun and games, now all of a sudden the health care system is over burdened with Boomers that are suffering from COPD now, my stepmom works as a nurse, and you would be surprised as to how many people over 60 are having COPD issues, and they still won't quit.
But it never advertised come die with us. Thats absurd. It tried to tap into the cowboy culture and general masculinity. It rode on the coattails of the spaghetti western.
its funny b/c happiness is the smell of a NEW car. once you start driving it, it loses that smell. and then corp is showing off new models and you need that high yet again.
Holy shit no lie my cigarette of choice became Lucky Strikes in the military and I would brag how they're cigarettes are toasted making them somewhat better in my mind as far as quality. This goes to show me I've been a pawn of advertising, my life is a lie.
It's interesting that Pete was absolutely right. The Marlboro Man became a massively successful campaign because it embraced the same themes of danger and manhood that Pete described. Very sophisticated writing, giving Pete a reason to be resentful later on in the series.
pete isn't wrong but he also absolutely does not know how to sell that idea to an old man who doesn't want to acknowledge the problems with his product
I duno, Petes idea was actually terrible, the Malboro Man campaign would have already existed for years at the time this scene is set in, his idea was derivative while also drawing attention to the thing people are criticizing cigarettes for... His idea only served to juxapose how good Dons idea is, where Pete is trying to fight against the health claims, Don is redirecting the entire discourse
@@stevelewza given that don pitched a slogan that had been in place for decades irl i don't think we can assume that their timeline fits perfectly with ours
@@stevelewza Pete is referencing Freud’s framework on subjectivity. Both the “death drive” and “happiness” are closely interrelated. They are both talking about aspects of the same thing “desire”, which is always a desire for itself
Pete wasn’t right. He got that information from a study he pulled out of Don Draper’s trash, a study a psychologist presented to Draper before Draper threw it in the trash. It might have been valid psychology but it wasn’t good advertising to present to that client.
well reality is that most companies, pharmaceutical and any other products, funds the study and hires people to do the research. The study is then reviewed by FDA or appropriate parties.
such a great scene on so many levels. at the onset of his epiphany everybody is standing but Don; by the end he's the last man standing. the way he takes Pete's car scenario, flips it, and runs with it is genius. forget about the fact that driving is dangerous - new cars smell like success and the billboards you pass reinforce the fact that you're ok, everything is going to be alright. so go on and smoke your toasty little smoke...bad things may happen in this world but they're not going to happen to You. advertising in its purest form.
I think it’s amazing how with this scene we are rooting for Don to save the day… which means millions of people being manipulated and lured to a slow, brutal death. Actually, I found myself debating what the slogan would be before Don settled on “it’s toasted”. I came up with “luck at first strike.” My guess is that I probably would’ve been fired on the spot.
Flawless writing here. You can study this scene again and again for why, but it comes down to what Clifford Odets used to call “orchestration”. A band with multiple instruments all playing in harmony. Everyone in this scene has a part to play, a conflict, stakes and crucially and perhaps best of all, it’s not overly dramatic. People aren’t shouting at each other over some obvious conflict. It’s subtle, like a kettle over a flame, drama slowly rising from simmer to a boil. The acting is pitch perfect, the blocking, the shot selection, lighting. A maestro class in every way.
Completely agree. Moreover, it perfectly encapsulates who Don Draper is, he is nobody, and everybody at the same time. He has no identity, he is nothing but his own marketing creation. He is whatever or whomever he tells everyone else he is. And, in fact, he tries to manufacture his own happiness via his own marketing. He understands advertising as he 'is' whomever he needs to be. Unfortunately, he is ultimately empty inside, as is blind consumerism. It is, in the end, all an empty facade.
Hell yes. Pick out pretty much any scene from Sopranos and you will see something similar...ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1gyncMcVkCE.html
A great first episode to let you know what the show is going to be about. Even the scene with the fly stuck in the corner of the light. Don is a fake selling fake happiness. He falls apart as he seems to be the rainmaker for the firm. Pitching tobacco was the best product--literally selling slow, painful death as wholesome as mom's toast. Had they begun with Menken's, it wouldn't have had the cynicism. Meanwhile, there's all the office power games going on--this isn't a crew who works together, they stab each other in the back and sometimes the front as well. It was a "man's world", or really, a man's jungle. Every day is "What have you done for us lately?" with as much intrigue as any royal court
@NibiruLives Y'know, they say LSMFT stands for "Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco," but *real* smokers know what it really means- "Let's Screw, My Finger's Tired."
Very nicely played by Hamm, but this is pilot Don. Once the character was more developed we came to know him as a man who'll take uncalculated risks with women but only calculated ones in business. He wouldn't show up unprepared at a meeting with his most important client.
I think the implication was cigarettes problem was a big one, and it took a real stroke of genius for Don to get them out of “the public finally realises it’s bad for you” problem.
@@anaussie213 i think what he's pointing at is the fact that he had no words at all when they asked him. thing which doesn't happen throughout the rest of the series. even if he doesn't have the answers at all he always had a way to deflect the conversation or else. perhaps if he had come with a solution, they said no and pete continued would have been more appropriate to his character. but i still see your point, maybe it's just a way of saying "even the great don draper didn't have a solution up until the last moment" or something like that
Don is smart enough to know that the “death wish” angle is advertising suicide, but beyond that, where do you go logically? I think he was truly just stumped, as out of character as it may seem. Plus, having him come up with the answer via an off-the-cuff epiphany as the client is about to walk out is a great way to build the mystique around Don’s character.
This is exactly what Anheuser-Busch Inbev did with their superbowl ad this year, with making it known that other major brands brew their products with CORN SYRUP, but not us. It's actually quite brilliant.
Mad Men is a very good show to understand the world of advertising and marketing. Don Draper has inspired many viewers to explore the world of marketing as a career and their way to make history.
Don Draper is a great character because so many (particularly male) viewers fell in love with his charisma and style, and emulated him in their own lives and lynchpinned their entire personalities on the archetype, only to discover late in the series that everything about Don is a complete fraud and he's a shallow and shit person, and another character sums his whole career perfectly: "you don't have character, you're just handsome".
@Jacare 1 Yeah it's just that the owners didn't like that... like the more stupid shit you do as a man, the more "manly" it makes you, just look around at the idiots acting "internet alpha male" and listen to what they are saying, they are 100% of the time suggesting you do something to shorten your life span but that "makes you a man". I think that's what he was trying to do here, "It's dangerous? So what, Imma still be a free man, I ain't gonna let you tell me what to do!" Which is basically the mentality of smokers we have today, you tell them about how bad it is for them and the ones around them, and 100% of the time they will tell you this. The owners just haven't got it yet...they thought they could spin the whole thing around( by convincing people it's not dangerous or distracting them) and keep on getting the same amount of smokers but it wasn't possible anymore, once the real science talks. In the end, only the ones with this mentality will keep smoking, and if they had went in this direction earlier, they would've lost less smokers, but hey, they still wanted the majority to smoke so they didn't go with that, they thought the organizations they funded were enough to turn this thing around so all they wanted was damage control.
I had a Lady Freind. She thought it was the coolest thing's. Don Draper, pretty much screwing everything that walked. Her & I must have watched every episode of MadMen. In-between doing our own thing. Brings it all back.
I was rewatching season 7 and its strange to see how this confident and dashing Don Draper turned into a shell of a man he used to be. He has always been just a vessel with internal problems
Yeah, they basically created this guy who was the "James Bond" of Madison Avenue. As time went on, they slowly peeled back the layers to reveal that he's just an ordinary man with the same problems as the rest of us.
When people see cigarettes, they first thing that pops up their mind is "cigarette is poisonous" Don is trying to impose a different impression on the objective audience. Typically, their think process is Lucky Strike -> Cigarette -> Cigarette is poisonous. When people read the "Lucky Strike is toasted" slogan for enough times, they will eventually change their think process to Lucky Strike -> Lucky Strike is toasted. Its similar to hearing a song so many times its stuck in you head.
@Edward Walker and you can be proud of this accomplishment my man. a few years from now there's a 30% chance that you form some sort of lung cancer or your legs start hurting and falling off, or you get a few heart attacks. you'll cost the non smoking tax paying community hundreds of thousands of dollars / euros and will die a slow or maybe fast painful death :) wake up brother ;)
@@shikeridoo The more important part of what you just said is .... why the fuck would tax payers be paying for someone else's healthcare? Get the government out of that business, and people can do whatever the fuck they like with their own body.
This show is so smart, Don was buying time before he could hit the mark on his epiphany by writing Lucky Strike on the whiteboard while the Father spouts things about his company. Everyone knows the name of the company but by Don physically moving/ performing an action, it increases the excitement of his new found idea, erasing his previous shortcoming.
Well written and well played scene. Both sides of the table are capitalists who are in survival mode, but from different angles. The Lucky Strike executives are trying to stave off what they perceive to be a totally external attack on their product. The advertising executives are trying to keep a profitable account. To strike (pun intended) a mutually beneficial solution, they both engage in massive denial that the problem is the product itself. The subtle almost hidden sigh of relief from Don says, "We saved this account. For now." But he interiorly he knows the battles to keep a cigarette marketable are only beginning.
I loved this show. It was beautifully detailed and done. When I was a kid, I had a very short attention span. I could pay attention to an ad - but that was about it. And no - I'm not talking about just the toy ads. I mean the Colt 45 Malt Liquor ads. The Alka-Seltzer ads. All the rest.
Thats the way advertising works. It does not matter what Don thinks, what maters is what the client thinks and what the client wants. Lucky Strikes wanted to hear this and Ed Baxter wanted to hear the season 5 quote, and that is what Don said.
Two things I like in this clip. First, Pete saying "Cars are dangerous. There's nothing you can do about it." So much for American know-how and ingenuity! Second, the idiotic but well-dressed son. Perfect casting for the guest actors!
Pete talks about car and going about it. Gets shot down. Don creates a context and gives the same example. Gets lauded. This scene is a masterpiece. Love this more than the Carousel pitch.
WAYTOGO DON👍!! via THAT last minute slogan ya saved account and DOOMED MILLIONS to early death who would have otherwise quit after study released! good job!
Well, in this scene its kinda pointed out that people really dont care about the study, or anybody else saying that Tabacco is bad. It is bad of course, and everybody knows that, even the people back then. All they need is someone to tell them it isnt, so they can choose to believe that instead and still do it. People just need a reason, someone telling them its okay. Thats why this commercial worked in selling THEIR smokes. Cause those people that were smoking then still would have, but now they know whose sigarretes to smokes. Lucky strikes. Because lucky strikes are toasted
But, it’s totally, TOTALLY fine to smoke the wacky tobbacky! Made totally legal now in Washington, Colorado, Alaska, and Cali. Brought to you by the oh so hypocritical, follow on, boomer generation! Like they say now: “Ok, boomer!” LOL
i think one of the points is that the public don't know that all cigarettes are toasted and no other cigarette company can use that slogan, so what the health issue did was level the playing field. the slogan addresses what the cigarette is- for the rest of the brands the public will think cigarettes are poisonous. for luck strike the public will think the cigarette is toasted.
Exactly. It doesn't matter that every cigarette manufacturer toasts their cigarettes, because the average consumer doesn't know how they are made. So the FIRST company to say theirs is toasted, is what grabs that share of the market in the consumer's mind. Even if other companies claim theirs are toasted, people will remember Lucky Strikes for being toasted because they were first.
Hey there @aclydefrog! Thanks for uploading this. My ultimate favorite scene from Mad Men. Can I request permission to use this video in one of my e-learning courses? I'm teaching about voice acting for commercials and I can't think of a better way to illustrate that advertising is all about creating a feeling.
I like at the end Roger taps his fingers signaling "we got 'em, we're in". This scene encapsulates the true meaning of the series. Manipulate the masses by any means necessary for personal gain and wealth....
When I smoked many, many years ago I could buy a carton of Lucky Strikes for $2.00 including tax. Late 1950’s. You could smoke ANYWHERE! Even in hospitals. How things have changed. In this case, for the better.
Heh, Roger says "I don't have to tell you what you just witnessed" but when Lee responds "I think you do", Roger didn't expect it I think? He is not sure himself what Don's saying I think :D Maybe not, but his expression was funny.
No, he wasn't expecting it, because what Don did should clearly speak for itself. Did Roger really know what Don was saying, I don't know, probably not, but that doesn't matter, what mattered is that he knew that Don brought them back to the table with a great piece of bait, his spur of the moment genius pitch, and now he has the opportunity to reel them in(just as they were about to get away).
Pay attention at 0:32 when roger is saying "through manipulation of the the media, the public is under the impression your cigarettes are linked to certain fatal diseases" Don is trying to use the same channel to impose the lucky strike is toasted impression to the public.
@Lattamonsteri well that's the base concept of every ad campaign ever. you don't make the product better by advertising it, you just differentiate the "experience".
When Don didn't say anything I thought he was bad at his job. But then later on he said something that was good, he wrote it on the blackboard too. In the middle bit, Pete said something about research but I was like 'whoa' nobody cares about your research, this is going to end badly! But then when Don said about it being toasted I think he saved the day and the meeting was adjudged to be a success.
I like that the son immediately stops the meeting once his dad said that shit about the Native Americans. It would be a PR bust for them if his dad went on and on from that point.
I always felt like Pete had this idea before Don but presented it poorly. Essentially Don said the exact same thing--who cares if it will kill you? Be happy. I think the writers wanted to point that out because they show a quick shot of the disgust on Pete's face.
If only the cigarette industry had developed an e-cig by the 70s or 80s they could have saved themselves. I am so grateful that I don't have to breathe 2nd hand cigarette smoke. The smokers ruined their pleasure of public smoking because they couldn't be polite enough to keep their smoking away from everyone else.
@DSchruteBeets Yea, I've understood that some ad campaigns in Mad Men are based on real campaigns. But, as Don himself pointed out, all cigarettes are really the same. All of them are toasted, so declaring that Lucky Strike is toasted instead of being sun-dried, while it may have given a more luxurious image to the product, certainly didnt make it any different from other deadly cigarette brands. Maybe it's just that I can't quite digest the use of a 20s ad in the 60s. But that's just me... :P
It makes it different in the mind of the consumer because the average consumer doesn't know how cigarettes are made and that all of them are toasted. All they know is Lucky Strikes are toasted.
