MADMEN GONE MAD

https://www.storytellers.com.br/2012/06/madmen-gone-mad.html
For the
last month or so I’ve been watching the TV series MadMen, both because I was
told to do so and also because it is a really good series. I’ve also been
reading a lot about advertising nowadays and suddenly the two things merged in
one single thought: Have we, the MadMen of our times gone really mad now?
When you
watch MadMen, just by the third season you understand the market changes they
are living, the TV is the newest and most important media and the characters
insist on repeating to clients that the important thing for a brand to do is to
buy media. I feel that was true for a long time and some of us still believe
that time in media, whatever media it is, should solve the problem for a great
campaign. But time has changed and with the internet we’re working in world
full of information where the boring part of it does not survive. As uncle Ben
said to Peter Parker “Great powers come with great responsibilities” but more
than that they come with great challenges, after all it is not storytelling if
the hero is not transformed by the end of it.
One of the
first concepts of storytelling you learn is “plot” which is, superficially speaking,
an idea that evolves every beat and every scene of a story to make it become
more real and interesting. Why not do the same with a brand?
The plot of
a company or brand should be able to make people relate to it, feel something
about it and eventually, if that’s you purpose, buy it. It is not a lie when
marketers say that TV commercials are going down the road to inexistence. I,
for instance, when getting into a supermarket want my refrigerator to look like
Steve Jobs’ even if I haven’t ever seen his refrigerator. It is natural to want
to be part of something we like and to belong to the group of people we admire.
The best way to make us feel that is to tell a good story about the day Steve
Jobs drank a can of Pepsi to freshen up. Product Placement has evolved to Story
Placement and all of it in a plot.
Maybe it is
time for us to understand that the challenge in advertising now is the same as
it is in storytelling: to find the human truth in our brands which should be
shared with everyone and let our hero/brand grow on people’s heart and not just
on their minds. Have the media supported strategy of the Madison Avenue in the
60’s became so crazy it sounds mad? Or it is just me being mad now?