Don Draper Is Dead Final

DON DRAPER IS DEAD
DON DRAPER IS DEAD

By
MICHAEL WEISS

Table of Contents
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
LETS TALK ABOUT ADVERTISING
LETS TALK ABOUT THE PITCH
11
THE NEW FRONT LINE
12
TOUCH POINTS: HOW MANY IS TOO MANY?
16
MAYBE I AM TO BLAME?
18
FINAL THOUGHTS
20
FOOTNOTES
25
2013 | All rights reserved

Michael Weiss | figure18
www.figure18.com | www.figure18.com
2013 figure18 | 818-538-9173 | www.figure18.com | @mikepweiss
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As Managing Director of figure18, Michael serves as a Content Marketing Consultant, a veteran
speaker, client advocate, and sales executive. He has worked with many world-renowned brands,
including: Disney, Well Point, OCESA, Life Technologies, MoneyGram, Estee Lauder, and
Technicolor. Michael is also an adjunct professor at Loyola Marymount University where he teaches
Content Marketing at the Business School.
As a regular TEDx talker, teacher and speaker, Michael has spoken to thousands of people all over the United States.
Michael is also an accomplished musician and has played in front of large audiences from New York to Los Angeles. He is
no stranger to the stage and enjoys entertaining people whether they want to learn, rock out or both!
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
Robert Mapplethorpe, Jimi Hendrix, to name a few. And
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
Don Draper fits right in. Around the year 2000 the Internet
was booming and with that the advertising industry was
Sadly, he is dead. He was actually dying for quite a while.

In fact, ever since the Internet came along his health
in constant flux. Don Draper simply could not move as

quickly as he needed to and he became obsolete.
started to decline. It was long battle. He fought hard, but

in the end he just couldnt hang on. And so, as sad as it
is, hes in a better place.
There were two contributing factors to Dons death. While

you would think it would have been lung cancer or liver
failure; he was as strong as an ox and the booze did not
NOTE: This is not a Mad Men spoiler. The character is

still alive and well. Its a metaphor.
kill him. No, Don Draper died of two things: One more
obvious than the other. The obvious one? Advertising. Its
just not what it used to be; and that broke his heart. In his
I have my own theory that highly influential people of a
own words Don had this to say about advertising:
certain era often die when the world around them

changes and they cannot keep up with the shift. It seems
to happen when one decade ends and another begins.
Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do

you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a
Jim Morrison, John Belushi, Keith Moon, Bon Scott,
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side
of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever
you're doing is OK. You are OK.
The Don Drapers of the world believed in advertising.

They believed they could change peoples behavior with
solid creative and copy. A good headline with long copy
sold a lot of products for many decades.
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
The other contributing factor? The pitch. The pitch as

Don Draper knew it is almost extinct. The I talk; you
LETS TALK ABOUT ADVERTISING
listen and then do what I say. Its disappearing. I am not

saying that the sales pitch is gone forever. It is alive and
well. But back in Dons day it was the only way to get in
For those of you who were not marketing majors, heres a

quick history of advertising primer:
front of a customer and win the deal. It was a meeting. It

was a moment in time. For Don it was an event. It was
how he got in front of a customer and convinced them to
sign his agency. Thats just not the way things are done
anymore and that, dear reader, was the final nail in the
coffin.
Advertising started in Egypt in around 2000 BC when

Egyptians carved public notices in steel. In 1472 a
printed handbill was passed around England announcing
a prayer book for sale. Fast forward to 1892 when Sears
created Direct Marketing by sending out 8,000 postcards
and receiving 2,000 orders. In 1963 David Ogilvy created
the modern age of advertising by eloquently stating,
The consumer isnt a moron; she is your wife. 1970
marks the first infomercial. 1982 MTV is born. 1994 the
banner ad hits the Internet. Google rolls out AdWords in
2000. Pop Ups bombard us in 2001. Pre-Roll ads begin
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
to infiltrate YouTube in 2006. 2010 is the birth of the Old
and is figuring out more and more creative ways to block
Spice Guy. Phew! 1
them out, including caller ID, spam filtering, TiVo, and

Sirius satellite radio.3
But what really is advertising? Some of us call traditional

advertising Interruptive Marketing. And frankly it is
Now with the proliferation of DVRs people are starting to
interruptive. It pops in and distracts us. That is its
take control by diminishing the advertisers ability to
purpose. Back in the 60s people were interrupted with
interrupt them doing what they do best sitting on the
messaging close 75 times a day2. In 2012 the number
couch and watching TV. In fact watching our favorite
tops 3,000. Thats 3,000 messages that bombard our
shows has become more efficient. I can watch New Girl
eyes and brains every day. If you are awake for 16 hours
in 22 minutes on my DVR versus 30 minutes live. If I
thats about 200 messages an hour or between 3 or 4
watch 4 shows thats 32 minutes! What am I to do with all
messages a minute.
that time?!
Brian Halligan, CEO of Hubspot was spot on when he
In 2011 TV Guide surveyed 5,800 mainstream US TV
said, Your average human today is inundated with
viewers and found that 96% of DVR users are skipping
thousands of outbound marketing interruptions per day
commercials.4 96 percent! I know, its an obvious statistic,
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
but its an important one. Because brands have to think
Idols performance was low for delayed viewing because
twice about media buys and production costs when it
if viewers cannot watch it live, they cannot vote and
comes to commercials. If people are going to skip them,
chances are they will not watch it later. So where are
why make them?
commercials still viewed? Live events and reality shows.
The use of DVRs has now allowed viewers to postpone
For Super Bowl XLVII brands paid just shy of $4 million
watching their favorite shows. This has made Nielsen
for 30 seconds of commercial airtime. The most money
ratings even more complicated. It also explains how
ever spent in history. Many brands are using the airtime
Modern Family ultimately eclipsed American Idol among
as part of their merged media efforts. Meaning a blend of
key young-adult audiences at the end of 2012. Modern
paid, earned and owned media. Volkswagen is a perfect
Family added an average 5 million viewers in the seven
example. Between YouTube, on air and their Why VW
days after an episode aired. A prime example of people
campaign they are going full throttle (pardon the pun).
taking control of their media. In fact, among viewers aged

18 to 49 it jumped 48% in delayed viewing where Idols
Volkswagen sees the benefit of merged media, but not
performance just gained 17%. 5
Audi. Audi spent $4 million for airtime only. No web site

or concerted effort on the social web. This is because in
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
he past the automaker gets record level awareness and

showroom traffic after the game.
Loren Angelo, GM of Marketing for Audi, said, It's an

ideal time to tell the brand's story on one of the world's
most-watched stages."6
While this is something Don Draper could appreciate, the

truth is that advertising for live events and reality shows
are simply not enough when it comes to reaching and
engaging an audience that has assumed control.
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
10
In fact, the consumer is president of the new republic.7

And the republic is a world where brands and people are
in a relationship. People are in charge. The consolation
for brands? Big Data. People literally leave a trail of data
wherever they go online. Brands are drooling over this
data. They think they know everything about their
customers and they use this knowledge all the time. But
oftentimes they use it carelessly and this can create
distrust. If the consumer is the president of the new
republic, watch out, because they can skewer a brand
they distrust in just a few clicks.
Its happening all the time. And why? Because the

consumer is holding the cards. This fact is critical when it
comes to creating content and, more importantly, the
story the brands choose to tell.
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
11
Yet used creatively and even scientifically Big Data can
LETS TALK ABOUT THE PITCH
do wonders for our marketing initiatives. But are brands

using it well? I think the promise of Big Data is making
brands speak before they think and take action before
they analyze the data they have. They know more about
their customers than ever before. Yet so many initiatives
based on Big Data feel forced and kind of creepy. How
many times have you searched for something only to
have it pop up in Ad Words and Banner Ads? So maybe
Does it only happen in the conference room? It used to.

As I said earlier, for Don Draper it was an event. His
moment to shine. But now its happening all the time.
24/7/365. Its happening right now. This eBook is a great
example. Part of my job is as a Content Marketing
Consultant. I would be foolish not to use this eBook as a
lead generation tool. (My number is in the footer).
the promise of Big Data has yet to be fully realized but

the reality is that there is more data than ever before.
Brands need to spend time with it; figure out WHO they
want to target before they decide WHERE they should be
and WHAT they are saying.
Alec Baldwins character Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross

said it best. A-B-C. Always Be Closing. That simple
statement couldnt be more accurate today. It should be
the mantra for every single brand that is both on and
offline.
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
12
If you have a web site, a blog, are on social platforms

such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and an email
campaign, you are pitching and selling 24/7/365.
THE NEW FRONT LINE

We all know the numbers. 1 billion people on Facebook;
almost 200 million on Twitter; 72 hours of video uploaded
to YouTube every minute; and the mind blowing list goes
on and on.
As recent as 10 years ago brands didnt need to think

about any of this. The touch points with the sales team
were not as numerous. The front line was not as
complicated.
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
13
Now every minute of every day a person is talking about
she was being funny by posting a picture of a receipt with
a brand or a product. They are tweeting and posting and
the customers signature. It turned into a social media
rating and liking and sharing. At the same time the
nightmare that in the end cost her her job. She said she
brands are responding and interacting along with posting
thought it was funny. Who is laughing now?
and tweeting. Its an endless cycle of promotion and

discussion.
This is the new front line.
This is where marketing teams are designated to be. This

is also where employees are even though they are not
designated to be on the new front line.
Here is what the waitress had to say, When I posted

this, I didnt represent Applebees in a bad light, she
As Zig Ziglar said Everybody in a business is capable of

breaking a sale. What happened with Applebees in
continues, In fact, I didnt represent them at all. I did my

best to protect the identity of all parties involved. I didnt
January 2013 is a perfect example. A waitress thought
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
14
break any specific guidelines in the company handbook
Integrity is our most important commodity: Avoid writing
I checked.8
or posting anything that would embarrass The Times or

compromise your ability to do your job.9
I can almost guarantee that she didnt look at the Social

Thats about as clear as you can get. Then they go on to
Media Policy because as a waitress, why would she have
write a simple sentence that is nothing short of brilliant:
access to it. Often times social media policies are not
included in the official Handbook. Shes expected to be
Assume that your professional life and your personal life
on the old front line, not the new front line. I am sure
will merge online regardless of your care in separating
there is a clause in Applebees Social Media Policy about
them.10
protecting the brand and using integrity. I have had the

opportunity to write and read hundreds of Social Media
And right there dear reader is the perfect definition for
Policies. By far, one of my favorites is the Los Angeles
The New Front line. Our lives have become blurred; we
Times. They talk about integrity within the first sentence.
live in the gray zone. If you have a job and a personal life,
Its the first bullet point under the appropriate heading
chances are youre going to talk about them online. And
Basic Principals:
that is a brands biggest nightmare. How many times

have you mentioned your job on your Facebook page?
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
15
The waitress may have thought she was not representing

Applebees, but she was. She posted something about
her job. Right then and there she was a representative of
the brand.
As I said before when a brand is online it is immediately

on the front line. The doors are open and people can go
in and out as often as they like. They can do and say
whatever they want. And the brand needs to be prepared
and ready. It doesnt matter if you think you are not in
sales. If you partake in the digital arena you are in sales.
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
16
This is why it is critical you have a content marketing
TOUCH POINTS: HOW MANY IS TOO

MANY?
The great Walt Disney was acutely aware of the front
line. Who do you think the most important employees are
at Disneyland? Not the people in the character suits. Not
the people who serve you food. Not the engineers who
strategy. There are literally hundreds of books on Content

Strategy, so there is no need to go into detail about what
has already been said. But knowing WHO you are trying
to reach, WHAT story you want to tell, HOW you want to
tell it and then WHERE is clearly important for the new
front -line.
design and build the rides. The most important people at

Disneyland are the ride operators. They have more touch
points with the customer than anyone else at the park.
either visits a brands store or digital property, its story

has to be consistent. It needs to be tight.
They are the frontline.
With mobile platforms, web sites, email and the vast

array of content tactics, our brands are on the new
frontline constantly.
When a person sees an ad, receives an email and then
Most B2C companies are using on average 12 tactics as

part of their Content Marketing Strategy.11 Thats
anything from video to blog to email, etc. The experts at
The Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs were
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
17
kind enough to create this chart. Its quite an amazing list.
and efficiently tell a consistent story across all of these

tactics? It doesnt matter if you have a marketing team of
one or 100, its humanly impossible.
Do brands really need to manage 12 tactics every single

day or are they trying too hard? Some of you may say
you dont have a choice; this is where our audiences are.
While I will most likely agree with you, I have to ask: Are
you delivering quality content and engagement across
such a wide array of marketing tools? Does the story in
With the new frontline there are actually more than 20
your product video match the story in your email blasts?
ways to walk into a brands front door and make contact.
At the end of the day, just because you can have a
The new frontline is diluted. Its all over the place. When I
Pinterest page doesnt mean you have to.
initially saw this chart I was ecstatic, Wow look at how

many ways we can engage a persona! But then I
People are savvier today than ever before. They know
thought about it and realized, how can a brand effectively
they are being pitched 24/7/365. And frankly, they dont
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
18
mind. When a person engages with a brand they are

more than likely in the midst of their buyers journey and
MAYBE I AM TO BLAME?
expect to be engaged. Its how the brand sells to them

that is critical. The content needs to be educational. It
needs to be inspirational. It needs to be engaging. In the
end, it needs to move them towards some sort of
In 1999 I was running imagistic, a digital agency in Los

Angeles. We happened to be working with idealab! on a
few projects, one of which helped change the auto
industry forever. We designed and developed CarsDirect
transaction.
and sold the first car online. Talk about a paradigm shift!
Remember when it was simple? Just send them to the
website. But now with an average of 12 tactics there is a
lot to manage to keep consistent.
Lets look at the car buying process. Up until the late 90s
how did we buy a car? We saw a commercial or a print
ad and we went to the lot. As Blake from Glengarry Glen
Ross says, A man does not walk onto the lot unless he
wants to buy.
It wasnt until that precise moment when the car

salesman approached a person that there was an
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
19
interaction between the buyer and the brand. That was
degree complete car buying process. Now, when the
the tangible touch point. That was the old frontline.
buyer walks onto the lot they simply hand the salesman a
piece of paper they printed out from their computer and
Then we launched CarsDirect.com. And boy oh boy did
say I want that. I know you have this car on the lot and I
things change. We built tools with fancy names like The
am going to pay X. If not, I know another dealer who has
Configurator, where the customer could virtually build
it as well.
their car online. We also built The Comparator, where a

buyer could line up cars side by side and compare
For the most part, the old car salesman pitch has been
features, specs and price. We had 3D virtual images.
put to bed. When a buyer walks onto a car dealer lot he
Coupons. Deals! Forms to fill out! It was an online media
or she starts with the negotiation. The salesperson
frenzy. As time went on we got access to Kelley Blue
doesnt have to work that hard to convince you. Youve
Book and now there are sites like Car Fax and Auto
already done all the work.
Trader.
Is there even a pitch? There sure is. Its just different.
Sprinkle in a solid Content Marketing Strategy with all
There are videos, web sites, microsites, emails,
these online tools and the car buyer is engaged in a 360-
sponsored links, social campaigns, review sites, and on
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
20
and on and on. The content on all of these properties are

there to extend the brand. Sometimes it strengthens it
FINAL THOUGHTS
and other times it can weaken it. Whatever the case its
the new front line. The brand is handling the pitch at
every single touch point. The salesperson, which used to
be the only touch point, is now one part of a much larger
pitching machine.
Advertising and Marketing have changed. They have

morphed from being interruptive to permission based.
People are asking for it. They want it. They fill out forms,
they comment, review and rate. And in return they want
content that teaches them and helps them make a good
decision. The Altimeter Group said it perfectly in a report
they put out in July of 2012:
Advertising no longer works as effectively as it once did

unless bolstered by additional marketing channels. While
consumers distinguish less and less between these
channels, marketers remain specialized in one medium at
the expense of the others. Rather than allow campaigns
to be driven by paid media, marketers must now develop
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
21
scale and expertise in owned and earned media to drive

effectiveness, cultivate creative ideas, assess customer
needs, cultivate influencers, develop reach, achieve
authenticity and cut through clutter.12
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
22
In the Mad Men Pilot Don Draper meets with a business

owner who happens to be a woman who speaks her
mind. Don is so offended because the woman has
expressed her point of view that he leaves the meeting.
Yes, it was dramatic, but also a perfect example of life in
the 60s. Can you imagine Don Draper sitting in a pitch
meeting today where someone suggests they include
user-generated content on a web site? If he wasnt dead
already, his head exploding from that suggestion would
surely do him in.
Its 2013, not 1964. Millions of people are controlling,

changing, influencing and for all intents and purposes
owning the brand. Don Draper couldnt handle it.
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
23
One of the contributing factors to Don Drapers death was

technology. He simply did not have the means to be a
real-time ad guy. His work was fixed in time; in the can so
to speak. He was unable to move as quickly as brands
want to and more importantly, as quickly as people
expect.
During Super Bowl XLVII the lights went out for over 30
minutes. It was real time marketing heaven. As David
Meerman Scott put it so eloquently, At the Super Bowl
last night, the power at the New Orleans Superdome
went out for 35 minutes. It took just seconds for people to
start talking about #BlackoutBowl and less than five
minutes for brands to start Newsjacking the story.
Oreo won the night with this simple tweet:
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
24
Don Draper could have never done what Oreo did. Sure,
he could have come up with the same idea, but he never
could have executed it within minutes.
Don Draper represents the old front line. A front line that
is slow, detached from the people and rests on its laurels.
The new front line is not only nimble, it is exposed,
approachable and for all intents and purposes plays on
the same level playing field as the people they aim to
engage.
DON DRAPER IS DEAD
25
FOOTNOTES
1 - Infolinks Infographic The History Of Advertising
http://www.infolinks.com
2 - Bauer and Greyser (1968 ) Advertising in America
3 - Halligan, Brian (2010) Inbound Internet Marketing
Blog
4 - TVGuide.com's Fall 2011 TV Survey.
5 Levin, Gary (2012) DVRs Shift Viewing Habits, and
Ratings, USA TODAY
6 Indvik, Lauren (2013) Why Audi Chose a $4 Million
Super Bowl Spot Over a Digital Campaign, Mashable
7 - Media 2015: The Future of Media, (201), Unilver
8 Moran, Chris (2013) Consumerist
9 LA Times Social Media Policy (2009)
10 - LA Times Social Media Policy (2009)
11 Pulizzi, Joe (2012) Content Marketing Institute
12- Lieb & Owyang (2012) Altimeter Group

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