Fans of Mad Men likely caught the episode last season in which London Fog worked its brand into a plot line — a product placement arrangement of the standard variety. Now Christina Hendricks, the actress who plays Joan Holloway, has been hired by London Fog to appear in ads outside the show.
“this is the first time a Mad Men actor has appeared in an ad for a product previously hyped on the show, making for a novel kind of symbiosis. In fact, London Fog was actually first approached by Mad Men last season to work the brand into the show, says Dari Marder, Chief Marketing Officer of the Iconix Brand Group. ‘They went through archive ads, materials and product,’ she says. ‘We were thrilled with how it turned out, the integration was seamless.’ One could say the same thing about the London Fog ads.”
A member of the ChasNote research department challenged my claim earlier today that the concept of a workplace “coffee break” was launched by an ad campaign in the 1950s. The nerve!
Further investigation, however, suggests that we are both partly right. According to NPR, a couple of Buffalo-based factories offered their workers mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks for coffee (in one case it was bring-your-own) in the early 1900s. But it took a TV commercial in the 1950s to give it a name:
“Wherever the coffee break originated, Stamberg says, it may not actually have been called a coffee break until 1952. That year, a Pan-American Coffee Bureau ad campaign urged consumers, ‘Give yourself a Coffee-Break — and Get What Coffee Gives to You.’”
I can’t find the spot from Pan-American Coffee, but this one pretty much gets what coffee gave you back in the 1950s.
Full collection, including a link to a site that sells them as posters, at Laughing Squid.
Boing Boing suggests the faux vintage ads must be the work of Mad Men’s Pete Campbell. “These are too cheesy to be the work or Don or Peggy. Let’s be honest here.”
Those were the good old days, eh? When you could pitch cigarettes as the healthy alternative, and differentiate yourself from the competition by calling your tobacco “toasted”?
Later this month Brooks Brothers will sell 250 limited-edition Mad Men suits. I think I’ll stick with current sub-Draper wardrobe, but it’s impressive how quickly Mad Men morphed from a TV show into a fashion lifestyle.
According to Daily Mail UK, “secret” product placement in the show by brands such as London Fog and Stoli “could have been a plan masterminded by Donald Draper himself.” Secret?! Have you seen the show??
(Note: While product placement is a wide-spread practice in American movies and TV shows, it’s frowned upon in the UK and prohibited by the BBC’s internal guidelines.)
