Mad Men Season Premiere Viewing Parties?

Yes, I think you're right, Turtle95 and BrooklynJack. I rewatched the episode last night and the Stoli was clearly brought in by Roger, along with the Cuban cigars. Roger is an outlaw! Love him. He has the best lines.

I am old enough to remember the Coors thing, although I never was a beer drinker. But my friends made a big deal about being able to get Coors.

And UTZ is huge in Baltimore (they have a factory near there - I am not sure when it was built). Sal and Don were traveling to Baltimore - that's where the hotel was.

It's still product placement, no doubt....but as far as Utz goes, I think historically accurate as well.

As for Coors, the Rockies can have that crayon colored water back whenever they want it :-)

Flexichick wrote: . Sal and Don were traveling to Baltimore - that's where the hotel was.

Weren't they in Baltimore to meet with the London Fog folks? (still more product placement).

Jamzer wrote: Ad agencies work on accounts of all sizes. As long as they can make some money by doing it. It makes perfect sense that an ad agency would have large and small accounts. As far as Utz goes - it might have been a regional brand, but I was eating them with my elementary school lunch back in the mid-70's on Long Island. Must have been a big region!

The series has Sterling Cooper shooting TV spots for Utz starring their creepy comedian character Jimmy Barrett. I find it EXTREMELY difficult to accept that Utz potato chips was springing for TV ads with celebrity endorsements in 1961. Can you show me ANY television ads for Utz that predate 1980?

Maybe you ate them on Long Island in the '70s, but I don't remember seeing Utz on NYC shelves until the '80s or '90s. Back in my day, all we had was Wise and Fritos. When we could get our hands on one of those big cans of Charles Chips, we thought we'd died and gone to Heaven.

It's the same with beer. Before the mid '70s, imported beer was rare, and what you found in ads and on the shelves was Bud, Miller, Schaefer, Lowenbrau, Michelob, and a bunch of other shitty mass-produced US beers. I don't know when Heineken first appeared in the States, but I can't believe it was as early as 1961. I can remember my Dad getting all excited because some friend of his had driven East with a case of Coors in the trunk of their car, (this would've been somewhere around '75-'77).

Whatever. It's PRODUCT PLACEMENT! Deal with it!!!!

xlizellx wrote: it's not all product placement. why would there be an episode about bethlehem steel? they've been out of business for some time now. i think *(think)* the times do match up for the products.

Check out this excerpt from the Mad Men page on Wikipedia:

Product placement

Mad Men integrates product placement into its narratives. For instance, in a second season episode, the beer manufacturer Heineken is seen as a client seeking to bring their beer to the attention of American consumers. This placement was paid for by Heineken as an additional part of their advertising on the show. Cadillac has a similar deal with Mad Men. Other examples remain less obvious, like ads worked on by the firm, or companies sought as clients such as Utz potato chips, Maidenform, American Airlines, Clearasil and others.

The closing episode of season two was broadcast (for its premiere) with only one, brief, commercial interruption - a short ad for Heineken beer.

xlizellx wrote: but that doesn't mean they aren't time-period authentic. i'm just saying that things like Stoli were around, but because of the Cold War it wasn't easy to get - hence the reason why Pete couldn't drink it. It was hard to get. Heineken has been around since the 1870s. Yes, obviously Sterling/Cooper wasn't the ad agency for them, much like my example of Bethlehem Steel, but the companies were high-end items at that time in our country.

Yes, of course those brands existed at the time. Mad Men would be a joke if Sterling Cooper were handling the Microsoft account. My point is that Heineken was, (to the best of my knowledge) NOT being advertised in the US in 1961, and to see Don Draper propose supermarket displays for Heineken is just a wee bit cute, (as cute as product placement can be).

I've watched 6 episodes from the first year so far, trying to catch up to the current season. But - I don't get all the mania over this show.

I really enjoy the style of the show, the non-PC of the era, pointy bras, smoking, oysters rockefeller, all that stuff, but the plots are boring and thin, and there's very little about the characters that makes me want to continue.

Please tell me it gets better than this. I am really trying to grok the show, but without strong plotlines and interesting characters, it's just a window to 1960.

BrooklynGigCenter wrote: I've watched 6 episodes from the first year so far, trying to catch up to the current season. But - I don't get all the mania over this show.

I really enjoy the style of the show, the non-PC of the era, pointy bras, smoking, oysters rockefeller, all that stuff, but the plots are boring and thin, and there's very little about the characters that makes me want to continue.

Please tell me it gets better than this. I am really trying to grok the show, but without strong plotlines and interesting characters, it's just a window to 1960.

There's no accounting for taste.

Show is brilliant. If you don't get it, that sucks.

It's dense. One viewing of an episode is rarely sufficient.