Maddened By Mad Men...Marti's latest from:
 The media and ad industry have been all abuzz about AMC's "Mad Men," which started its second season this past Sunday. Critics adore it, millions watch it and apparently the ad industry worships it. According to The New York Times, the series has inspired commercials, designer fashions, department-store window displays, cigarette lighters, CDs and calendars -- even a mock issue of this very publication, Advertising Age.
I get it. "Mad Men" is glamorous, it romanticizes our harried and hassled industry, and it lets us indulge our nostalgia for the Wild West pioneer days of the ad biz. Ah, yes -- there were the three-martini lunches, the client boondoggles, the all-night benders after the annual budget meeting. There were no casual Fridays; the sharp-looking suits you see on TV were how all the dapper Don Drapers dressed. Men were in charge and women were in pursuit. The married ones were mild mannered housewives, some desperate, some not. The working girls were cute dollybirds willing to do anything to catch a rich husband. Good times if you were a guy in the business; not so much if you were a gal.
I caught one of the recent reruns from the first season, and, just to stay current, tried to watch it all the way through. What raised the bile in the back of my throat was when the ad guys stumbled across the eternal question "What do women want?" and the flippant reply was "Who cares?" I don't know about Leo Burnett or J. Walter Thompson, but ad legend David Ogilvy rolled in his grave at that moment. Here's a guy who showed he understood what side his bread was buttered on when he said, "The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife."
Until two or three years ago, women as consumers were still thought of as a niche market (more)
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