The Problem of Marketing Mad Men, Essay Example

Introduction

Mad Men is a current television drama that airs on the AMC network. The series follows employees at the Sterling Cooper advertising agency in New York City at the beginning of the series, and then the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce agency at a second location in Manhattan. The show creators claim that Mad Men was a term that marketing professionals gave themselves in the 1950’s, although there is no clear evidence for this (Frank 2013). The show is currently very successful, but AMC would like to increase hype for the seventh season which should result in additional traffic to the show’s website and additional viewers.

The major concern about marketing Mad Men is that it is a show about marketing. In the past, many marketing teams have had difficulty portraying the show in a way that captured aspects of its complex plot. While some advertisements that depict scenes from the show have been used successfully, they are unable to capture the essence of the show as a whole. Despite this, there have been many creative attempts to market the show. Mad Men: The Illustrated Worldfeatures a series of advertisements for the show that are created in the 1950s and 1960s style and eloquently captures the time period of the series. Other marketing attempts seem more random; Banana Republic has a Mad Men-themed clothing line and well-known musicians have made songs about the show. While this kind of marketing is useful for individuals who already watch the series to remind them to tune in to the new episodes, merchandising is less effective in encouraging new viewers.

Due to the current gaps in the marketing of Mad Men, it is essential to generate a direct marketing communications plan. First, however, it is essential to consider the demographic that subscribes to the AMC channel; this channel is not included in many cable packages, and is typically acquired as an add-on. As a consequence, those who subscribe to AMC are likely a fan of one of the shows that already exist on the station and likely heard about it from their friends who are also fans. Based on this fact, it is likely that individuals who subscribe to AMC and enjoy its shows also have friends who subscribe to AMC and enjoy its shows. This likely extends to Mad Men; it is a drama that is commonly spoken about and watched in groups. Although AMC is received by approximately 97,699,000 American households that subscribe to a pay television service (85.55% of U.S. households with television), it is possible that more individuals are able to access this service when they watch television with their friends (Seidman 2013).

An article entitled “The ‘Who Watches Mad Men?’ Effect” attempts to identify the demographic that watches the show (Dreher 2012). The article claims that only a small group of fans follows Mad Men, but it appears to be a larger amount than that because of the media attention that the show receives. A major complain among former viewers is that they used to watch the show, but it is difficult to keep up with its many seasons. Once they stop watching it for a season, they don’t feel a need to return to the series. In our marketing of season 7, it is therefore essential to portray the series in a way that is independent of the other 6 seasons. If it doesn’t seem that viewers needed to watch the other six seasons to understand and enjoy season 7, it is more likely that former fans of the show will begin to watch it again.

According to the Hollywood Reporter,Mad Men had 2.6 million viewers as of season 5. This includes 1.1 million adult viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, which indicates that this viewer group has increased between 15 and 17 percent since the previous season. In addition, the series also grows an average 1.2 million viewers in Live+3 Day DVR returns (O’Connell 2013). Therefore, a major goal here should be to target the large group of AMC subscribers who do not watch Mad Men.

Since viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 have the ability to and are most likely to subscribe to AMC, this age group will be targeted. Both genders will be targeted equally, and individuals who are considered middle class will be targeted preferentially due to their increased likelihood to be able to afford AMC and tendency to see advertisements in public areas such as bus stops. The main populations that will be targeted are those who do not have AMC but may enjoy Mad Men, those who have AMC and do not watch Mad Men, and those who have previously watched Mad Men but stopped. As a consequence, these advertisements will portray the new season of Mad Men as an exciting show that should be watched and is not hard to follow if the viewer has not seen the other 6 seasons.

Marketing Communications Message

In order to market Mad Men to these three groups of individuals, we must first ensure that they have access to the AMC channel. As a consequence, it would be useful for AMC to offer a promotion to households that are not yet subscribers (Huff 2010). Since season 7 of Mad Men will premiere April 13 at 10 P.M, it will be useful to offer cable subscribers without AMC to have access to AMC for free for that full week in “celebration of the season premiere of Mad Men”. This will enable viewers who have not previously experienced AMC to have an opportunity to form an opinion about the shows on this network, while specifically generating a buzz for Mad Men. Viewers who are allowed this deal will be more likely to tune into Mad Men because this is the reason they were given free AMC access. Even if these individuals are not able to view it live, they will be able to DVR the episode or have access to AMC’s online streaming feature during the week. To ensure that the AMC access is primarily used to view Mad Men, free access will begin one hour before the season premier.

To target the individuals who already have AMC and do not watch Mad Men or were previous viewers who no longer watch the show, there should be a week long marathon of Mad Men episodes on AMC. This will give viewers who have never watched the show or have stopped a chance to catch up on the latest episodes and renew their interest in the series. To persuade viewers to watch this marathon, it should be advertised on the network several weeks in advance in addition to having a short promotion in the television guide.

While it seems that giving away a free week of AMC could hurt business, it is important for the company to realize that it may actually generate revenue from this sales pitch. Even if individuals decide against watching Mad Men, they will have a full week to watch AMC shows. If they decide that they like the series on this station, it is likely they will subscribe. Viewers who are pleased with AMC services are likely to serve as word of mouth advertisement for the station, which will in turn generate more revenue.

Through these promotional goals, the main marketing message is that Mad Men is a good show, and that it is worthwhile to make it available to viewers before the season premier. Since this is a very vague marketing message however, it is useful to follow it up with a different type of advertisement and a different approach. Since large cities have a lot of the population and contain a larger percentage of the target group, it would be useful to generate advertisements that could be placed in public areas such as billboards and public transportation (Stone 2001).

The main goal of the public promotions of Mad Men should be to instill a sense of excitement in the viewer. Since the show has a complex plot and it is difficult to advertise a show about advertising, it would be preferential to generate a series of advertisements that stand out and make the customer think about the show. As a consequence, large advertisements with the show characters and dramatic scenes that pop should be placed in various locations.

Marketing Communications Methods

Aside from the AMC promotions mentioned above, which will target everyone, the poster promotions must be more specific to the target population and placed in areas where they are more likely to notice them. Since the middle class is being targeted, billboards and public transportation will be selected as locations for poster advertisements, because this group is most likely to encounter this sort of advertisement during their commute to work.

Billboards will be placed in areas with high levels of traffic. Billboards outside of large cities such as Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago will be targeted because a majority of commuters who drive or take the bus will see these on their way to their office. It is also important to consider the individuals who live in these large cities, so public transportation will be targeted in these areas as well. Boston and New York City will be emphasized due to the quantity of people who need to use public transportation as their primary transportation method during the work day.

In order to generate the “excitement” message for Mad Men, advertisement will be emphasized in some specific locations preferentially over others. For example, the shuttle train in New York City transports millions of people between Times Square and Grand Central on a daily basis. As a consequence, many marketing teams recreate the outside design of this train and the inside to market their product (Harris 2013). To generate excitement over Mad Men, it would be useful to follow in this suit. The outside of the train will be made to look like a 1950’s or 1960’s advertisement similar to those in Mad Men: The Illustrated World, while the inside of the train will be completely full of modern advertisements of the show featuring the characters and exciting scenes. Several of these will depict the message “Mad Men: It’s Back!”. It is important to make several different advertisements for the inner compartment of the train, so commuters who find the advertisement pitch interesting will have several different messages they can view before they arrive at their destination.

While New York City is uniquely able to support the aforementioned type of advertisement, it is possible to generate the same effect for commuters on highways. A series of billboards could be purchased on major highways, each with a different Mad Men advertisement. The first billboard viewed by the commuter should be a general advertisement for the show. The second should also be a general advertisement, but hit upon a different aspect of the show. The third should be slightly comical and say something to the effect of “Mad Men: Thought you got rid of us? Series premier on April 13 at 10 P.M!” The other billboards should continue to poke fun at the fact that they’re never ending. The last one should say “Hope you enjoyed your commute! See you on April 13 at 10 P.M!” This advertisement could be placed in several different locations such as Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, and any other area near a major city that there is likely to be many commuters to be maximally effective.

Occasionally advertisements announcing the season premiere of Mad Men should be placed on bus stops and trains where there is a captive audience, but it is preferential to the marketing message to choose the methods that create maximal buzz among viewers, rather than passive advertisements.

Marketing Communication Media

The marketing communications to be used are the television guide, television advertising on AMC, advertising though the cable company offering free AMC, billboard advertisements, and public transportation advertisements. These forms of media are justifiable, because a combination of all of them allows us to target the largest number of individuals.

To target those that do not have access to AMC, every cable subscriber will be given free access to the network. This will be difficult for them to ignore, because in their cable bill before the promotion, they will be given a letter stating they will be given free AMC for a week to celebrate the series premiere of Mad Men with no obligation to purchase the station. It is likely that a majority of customers will want to take advantage of the station for the duration they have it, and they will become accustomed with several AMC shows. In addition, provided that the AMC subscribers watch AMC in the week before the Mad Men premiere, it will be impossible for them to not notice that the new season will be starting.

To remind people outside of their homes of the premiere, there will be advertisements in population dense areas that will be seen repeatedly by individuals in the target population. The first time they are viewed, they will be surprising and humorous, and the latter times will simply serve as a reminder to watch the premiere. The lower key advertisements in public will serve primarily to address those who did not see the larger scale advertising campaigns.

Conclusion and Summary

This report suggests a fun way to advertise Mad Men that avoids the marketing issues that the show has encountered in the past. Rather than trying to demonstrate the plot of the show in an advertisement, which has been shown to be impossible, it allows potential viewers to experience the show firsthand, whether they are AMC subscribers or not. The many unavoidable marketing ads put in major cities will remind the viewers that they have this opportunity available to them. This is a cost effective method of advertising because the main expense will be the billboards and the public transportation advertisements. The company is likely to make money from its free AMC promotion due to an increased interest in subscriptions.

In order to determine the success of this campaign, it may be useful to issue surveys to the cable customers given the free week of AMC access to determine if they watched Mad Men and what they think about AMC in general. This may help direct future marketing campaigns for Mad Men and other AMC series. Furthermore, website access and live views should be measured and compared to previous viewing statistics. If there is at least a 10% increase in views, this marketing campaign will be considered successful. AMC should also consider the number of subscriptions it receives after this promotion as a measure of success.

It is expected that this advertising campaign will be successful because it generates buzz for the show in a manner that has not been created before. In addition, it is likely to reach a broad audience of individuals regardless of their subscription to AMC and will generate interest in the show whether or not the individual has seen it before.

References

Clow, Kenneth E. and Baack D., (2004), Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications, 2nd edition, chapters 7 &8.

De Pelsmacker et al., (2007), Chapter 8

Dreher, R. 2012, The ‘Who Watches Mad Men?’ Effect. 18 April 2012. theamericanconservative.com. [9 February 2014].

Frank, T. 2013, Ad absurdum and the conquest of cool: Canned flattery for corporate America. 23 December 2013. Salon.com. [9 February 2014].

Fill, Chris (2009), 5th Edition, Chapter 17

Harris, C. 2013, NBC Advertises Premier League Rivalries On New York City Subway. 31 July 2013. World Soccer Talk. [9 February 2014].

Huff, Priscilla. 2010, Why the Internet is Causing Mail Order to Boom. Home Business Magazine. 15 November 2010. Home Business Magazine.[9 February 2014].

O’Connell, M. 2013, The sixth season of the Matthew Weiner drama falls just 100,000 shy of its most recent premiere. 8 April 2013. hollywoodreporter.com. [9 February 2014].

Seidman, R. 2013, List of How Many Homes Each Cable Networks Is In – Cable Network Coverage Estimates as Of August 2013. 23 August 2013.TV by the Numbers. Zap2it. [9 Feburary 2014].

Stone, B. 2001, Successful Direct Marketing Methods, 7^th edition, chapter 8