Full of day-drinking, chain-smoking, and extra-marital affairs, AMC’s Mad Men is often accused of overplaying the more hedonistic aspects of 1960s advertising culture - but it was actually inspired by events from a real ad agency during the immortalized era. Chronicling the rise, fall, and rebirth of Don Draper (Jon Hamm), an ad-man with a secret, Mad Men offered a heady blend of melodrama and film noir, enticing audiences with its decade-spanning deep-dive into life on New York’s Madison Avenue.
Sterling Cooper (later Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, and later still, Sterling Cooper & Partners) was the show's base of operations; an advertising agency whose staff and owners made up the bulk of Mad Men's central cast. While Sterling Cooper is a fictional company, it was inspired by many real-world agencies that operated throughout the 1960s and '70s. Speaking to The Telegraph in 2015, showrunner Matthew Weiner said, "I spoke to a number of ad executives from that era about the show and seventy percent of them said I'd got it dead right, [but] one hundred percent of the women said it reflected their experiences exactly.”
Former advertising executive Jane Maas (said to be the ‘real-life’ Peggy Olson) appeared to agree, and - in an interview with Don Draper's many mistresses on Mad Men. Unfortunately, Maas adamantly claims that the real-life scenario was, indeed, worse. In her book, Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond, Maas detailed her experiences working for Ogilvy and Mathers - a major advertising agency operating within the show’s time-frame. Also featured is Young and Rubicam, another agency and the subject of an exchange between Maas and industry veteran Joan Lipton, in which Lipton said: “Of course people partook [in office sex]. But you have to understand I was married, had a three year old son and lived in Connecticut.” When asked whether she was aware of such activity, Lipton replied: “Aware? Heavens, I partook!”
Young and Rubicam is also featured in the show itself when - in the Mad Men season 5 premiere, "A Little Kiss" - Y&R staff are shown throwing water-filled bags out of the office windows, targeting a group of Black protesters below. This was based on a real incident that occurred in May 1966, and led to demonstrators storming the building to confront the staff. Speaking to NY Times in 2012, Weiner recalled discovering a newspaper article about the event: “I was blown away. I just loved the level of outrage from the participants in the protest.” He went on to say that, “If I had concocted the story, I would have never written that. It was a great capturing of the lack of respect, which is to me what a lot of the show is about.”
Over its lengthy seven seasons, Mad Men was often praised for its period features. Despite this, Lola Cherson - former employee at Grey and Davis Advertising in the 60s - spoke with The Atlantic about Mad Men’s inaccuracies, saying: "If you met somebody in an office, if you were dating them, you met away from the office. You weren't supposed to be dating employees. In a lot of corporations, it wasn't allowed." She also referred to the characters’ alcohol intake, saying that while “it's absolutely true that many executive lunches were 3-martini affairs, [...] it's not true there was liquor in senior partners' offices.” She did, however, add that, “later in the '70s, the creative people were growing pot."
It’s really no wonder that Mad Men was a TV series favorite, as it appealed to so many people’s fantasies, showcasing a time and industry wherein work and play were often indistinguishable from each other. As always, there is a dark side to this fantasy - and Mad Men’s came to light in 2017 when Matthew Weiner was accused of sexual harassment by former staff writer Kater Gordon (accusations that Weiner denied in an interview with Vanity Fair). While the Swinging Sixties may be long behind us, their ethics and working practices appear to have lingered within the creative industries. Thanks to the #MeToo movement, these abusive practices are being exposed, finally allowing the chance for meaningful change to occur.
Are The Agencies That Inspired Mad Men Still Running Today?
Like Sterling Cooper, the workplace at the heart of Mad Men's overall series identity, the aforementioned, real-life advertising agencies had their heyday in decades past. In the years since, times have changed and the business world has continued to evolve and shift. According to Reference For Business, Young and Rubicam was bought out by a subsidiary of the British company WPP PLC (a holding company that deals with technology and public relations advertising) in 2000 during a friendly takeover. Ogilvy and Mather is also still running today, now under the shortened name of the Ogilvy Group. In 1989, WPP PLC took control of the ad company, as it did with Young and Rubicam.
Thus, in a way, certain threads from the Mad Men come across as horrifying. Nowadays, it's more widely understood that discriminatory and predatory behavior is unacceptable. But naturally, there will always be more work to do. Changing societal norms is a slow process akin to turning a ship, but it would be best for everyone if Mad Men's bygone era stays in the past.
