This week Mad Men celebrates the 15th anniversary of the show’s debut. Elmer Wheeler’s famous phrase about the science of advertising holds as true today as it did when he originated it almost a century ago: ‘Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle.’
Matthew Weiner’s series cast the advertising profession under a jaundiced eye, examining the mores and morays of Madison Avenue advertising executives from 1960 to late 1970. The show made Jon Hamm (as Don Draper aka Dick Whitman) a star, as well as boosting the careers of other regular cast members including Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Jared Harris, and Christina Hendricks.
It would be fair to say that motion pictures rarely paint a positive picture of the industry, often shown as home to a den of cynics, phoneys, con-men, sharpers, alcoholics and philanderers. And yet it commands enough mystique to have spawned a whole genre of films about advertising execs and the power they wield.
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