I love the AMC show MAD MEN, and I love it when brands extend beyond their typical medium (products, services, utility and all of the various forms of entertainment). I’ve even written about how much I loved the appearance of MAD MEN characters on twitter, but a blog that I follow (It’s Not You, It’s Media) just brought to my attention a momentary lack of effort by the MAD MEN producers.
The short story is (I’ll let you get it all from It’s Not You here), is that one of the characters, Roger Sterling, wrote a memoir during the 4th season called “Sterling’s Gold”. This book appears to actually have been released in the real world (extending beyond the show’s typical medium), with one exception, it isn’t the actual book, it’s just a collection of one-liners from the show. Check it out here.
To me, and to the wonderful person over at It’s Not You, this is just sad and shows a supreme lack of effort by the producers. How hard would it really be to push a bit further and give us more of the world that you’ve so wonderfully created on TV? This would have been an amazing way to do it (one, that I had never heard about or even considered until reading the blog post). It would have blown your viewers away, further entrenched their loyalty to your brand, given you an amazing PR story and probably even made you a chunk of change along the way. I echo It’s Not You‘s post and say: shame on you MAD MEN folks. Shame on you.
This downfall reminds me of a success story that I also recently came across. The Dos Equis brand has extended the “The Most Interesting Man In The World” campaign to include a Cirque Du Soleil style show called “The Most Interesting Show In The World” that is now travelling around the US, with the premise of it being “curated” by The Most Interesting Man, and hosted by Andrew W.K.. How much this really builds the Dos Equis brand, I don’t know, but I do think that it is a wonderful extension of the campaign.
What do you think?
Thanks!
Brian
UPDATE: I just read a very thoughtful and informative post from a blog called Transmythology, which also saw the news of Sterling’s Gold on It’s Not You’s post. Take a read, it certainly brings to light some things that I may not have thought of, like the difficulty in having MAD MEN’s creative visionary, Matthew Weiner (a very busy man) involved in shaping the story. That being said, I’d stand behind the recommendation that the producers/agency still should have not released the book, as they have now disappointed their viewers.
I also now realize that this sort of thing is called transmedia (duh).
