Most Diabolical Mad Men Ad Campaigns

By Jeff Wysaski on August 5th, 2009

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Mad Men returns for season three on August 16, and there are a lot of reasons I’m look forward to AMC’s Emmy-nominated series – the storylines, the cosmopolitan atmosphere and, of course, the chance to see more of Christina Hendricks and January Jones.

And though much of the plot takes place in the advertising agency of Sterling Cooper, the ad campaigns of Don Draper, Peggy and the rest usually take a backseat to the relationships of those involved. However, there have been plenty of advertising campaigns over the first two seasons that have served as major plot points to help advance the story.

Which brings me to another part of season three that I’m looking forward to – the chance to see more diabolical (and yes, realistic) ways that 1960s ad men sold America on everything from cigarettes to laxatives. In honor of this under appreciated aspect of the show, I offer up the most diabolical Mad Men campaigns of season one and two:

The Kodak Carousel Slide Projector

The season one finale of Mad Men was filled with a ton of great moments. One of which was Don Draper’s inspired pitch for the Kodak Carousel Slide Projector. Though the higher-ups at Kodak suggested Sterling Cooper give the new gizmo a high-tech slant, Don decides to take a nostalgic approach, offering up the photo projector as a “carousel of memories.” During the pitch, he uses his own personal photos to both speak to the executives, and reveal his hidden emotions to the audience.

The result? None other than a grand slam speech that not only won over the entire room, but had me thinking that I, myself, needed to purchase a 1960s-era Kodak slide projector (ASAP!). The inspiring speech can be found on Youtube, here.

Peggy’s Relax-a-Cizor

Peggy’s certainly coming into her own as a rising star in the Sterling Cooper office. This is no small feat, given her lack of male genitalia. One of her early successes was putting together a titillating ad campaign for the Relax-a-Cizor – an electric exercise machine that stimulated the stomach muscles. During her product research, Peggy realized that the stomach wasn’t all that the machine stimulated.

Given that the product failed miserably at providing a real workout, Sterling Cooper had to find a way to market this ACTUAL selling point to a repressed 1960s population. The result was a classic tagline: The Relax-a-Cizor – You’ll Love the Way it Makes You Feel. Such a tactic is so diabolical, that I can’t help but think the Relax-a-Cizor (which was a real product) served as the inspiration for modern sex-aid manufacturers, who get around sticky laws by marketing dildos and vibrators for “novelty purposes only.”

Richard Nixon and Secor Laxatives

When you’re marketing a presidential campaign, the stakes are high. And in the world of the 1960s, marketing Droopy Dog Richard Nixon against the chiseled face of John F. Kennedy would have been exceptionally difficult. As might be expected, Sterling Cooper is having difficulty keeping up with Kennedy’s charisma.

During a discussion of frat pranks, Pete Campbell has a brainstorm, which quickly leads to one of his few personal wins at the office of Sterling Coop. While he and Harry discuss the Secor laxatives campaign, Pete realizes that they can reduce ad space for Kennedy in battleground states by buying up airtime in battleground political states for Secor ads. With so many laxative commercials flooding onto the airwaves, Kennedy’s face won’t be so prominent. Though Kennedy eventually wins the election, using laxative commercials as a political ploy is a truly genius ad tactic.

Lucky Strike Cigarettes

In the 1960s, researchers began connecting the dots between cigarettes and cancer (curse you, science!). This created a unique problem for cigarette companies like Lucky Strike, who were now marketing murder sticks to the masses. How do you sell a product that kills you? Well, freshman Pete, in all his ignorance, wants to use the psychology of chasing danger to repurpose cigarettes to appeal to the “rebel without a cause” inside us all.

Naturally, the Lucky Strike execs hate this idea. After mulling it over, Don Draper reemerges with another master stroke. “Advertising is based on one thing,” he says. “Happiness.” If all tobacco is deadly, then why address the issue in the first place? Rather, Don suggests that, while all other tobacco is poisonous, Lucky Strike is “toasted.” Simply by ignoring the elephant in the room, Lucky Strike has a diabolical campaign on hand that is guaranteed to keep killing smokers into next year’s annual earnings report.