Has AMC increased awareness (buzz) around the television show and the brand for Mad Men?
In a word “Yes.” In two words, “Absolutely, Yes.”But there’s one important thing to remember. As we mentioned previously, this wasn’t solely done with Facebook. It’s critical that we understand that launching a successful PR campaign online requires the involvement of several different platforms and methodologies. In order to get to the question of how AMC found success on Facebook for Mad Men, it’s necessary to look outside of Facebook to see what other things they were doing online and offline during this campaign.
It seems that no one questions the stereotype in the show of Madison Avenue executives drinking at all hours of the day or night. Brian Rea, 82, worked at the Little Club in the 1950’s, a popular Midtown restaurant. He’s quoted in The York Times: “Lunch was a big thing,” he said. “They took two and a half hours. We had a lot of agency people come in, from Cunningham & Walsh, BBDO, all having serious lunches with drinks."
When Deep Focus deployed a few micro-sites in order to support the show and create excitement around the brand it only made sense that they played to this theme. One of the sites they created was The 1960s Cocktail Guide. It shows fans of the show how to make swanky, hip adult beverages just like the ones the advertising executives at Sterling Cooper would have had their ladies make them. It’s important for the fans to have a guide with the recipes for these drinks. If you’re going to enjoy the show with the Gibson Martini or Manhattan, it’s critical that the drink be made correctly no matter if the bartender is your mistress, your secretary, or your wife.
“Cocktails have been a vital element of the show right from the opening scene,” says Robert Simonson in a piece about the show he penned in The New York Times. The first scene in season one shows Don Draper sitting in a bar. We learn his drink preference, “Do this again — old-fashioned, please,” before we know his name or what he does for a living.
The fans loved the guide, and so did traditional press. In a piece about the show from the New York Times blurbs about the micro-site were written about on blogs with themes from Retro Pop Culture like RetroModGirl to foodie blogs like TheKitchn and SlashFood.
Additionally, news aggregation sites like ShowHype promoted the microsite as did Oprah.com: “Host a cocktail party Betty Draper would be proud of“ called out the article on Oprah’s site. In each of these scenarios, the blog post or article links back the the AMC TV landing page for Mad Men and/or to their own social media profiles like Facebook and Twitter.
How does AMC use Facebook to drive attention so they can sell advertisements during the show?
Coffee brand Eight O’Clock is the main sponsor of AMC’s social media efforts for Mad Men. Simply the fact that they *have* a sponsor for their social media efforts answers the query. However, let’s look at how AMC partners with Eight O’Clock Coffee with Mad Men’s social media public relations.
Essentially, the excitement driven by the 60’s hip icons created an army of Mad Men evangelists - directing fans and non-fans alike over the the Eight O’Clock branded/sponsored site to get their own version of customized 60’s sheik icons for their myspace, linkedin, twitter, and facebook profiles.
As of this writing, we are not aware of any additional brand integration with the coffee maker and the show. It would be interesting to see further crossover. For instance, why not have Sterling Cooper, the advertising agency featured in the show, take on Eight O’Clock coffee as a client in the storyline? Perhaps a simple campaign of product placement would suffice. Why are the characters in the show not walking around the office with paper coffee cups emblazoned with the “Eight O’Clock” coffee logo on them? There are a dozen obvious ways to integrate the brand with the show. We'll just have to keep out eyes open to see what the writers and ad men at AMC come up with for the writers and ad men at Sterling Cooper.
Celebrities, organizations, politicians, and corporate entities are making use of the Facebook Fan Page option in most cases today. Nevertheless, Group pages remain popular in some cases, I believe, because they are easy to set up. Whichever choice you make, be sure to dive in with abandon!
This post is from a draft for "Facebook Marketing - An Hour A Day." I am writing it with Chris Treadaway for Wiley Press (Sybex). The release date is February 26, 2010. You can reserve your copy now if you like.
