Advertising: The Madison Avenue Don Draper Never Knew

The Madison Avenue Don Draper Never Knew

JUST as agencies will often bring out a sequel to a well-received ad or campaign, an organization devoted to promoting creative excellence in advertising is bringing out a sequel to a well-received documentary.

An Avis ad from 1962.

A Levy’s rye ad.

The One Club for Art and Copy, which produced the award-winning documentary “Art & Copy” in 2009, is returning with a documentary called “The Real Mad Men and Women of Madison Avenue.”

In contrast to “Art & Copy,” which looked at familiar campaigns like “Just do it” (Nike), “Got milk?” and “Where’s the beef?” (Wendy’s), the new documentary takes a broader tack, examining the industry in the last six decades, with a focus, as the title suggests, on agencies and executives in New York.

“The Real Mad Men and Women of Madison Avenue” begins with a look at the hard-sell tactics that dominated the ad landscape during the postwar years through the 1950s, as promulgated by executives like Rosser Reeves, then covers the so-called creative revolution of the 1960s, which is part of the plot of the AMC television series “Mad Men.”

There are interviews with seminal figures from the ’60s: Jerry Della Femina, Roy Eaton, Amil Gargano, Paula Green, Mary Wells Lawrence, George Lois, Jane Maas and Len Sirowitz. Among the subjects they discuss is the importance of influential agencies of the era like Doyle Dane Bernbach and Ogilvy & Mather, which created groundbreaking ads for brands that included Avis, Dove, Hathaway, Levy’s, Schweppes and Volkswagen.

It is funny that the new documentary uses “Mad Men” as a jumping-off point. Although many of the creative executives of the ’60s say they appreciate the attention the series has brought their careers, they are not, well, mad about it.

In separate phone interviews, Mr. Gargano dismissed “Mad Men” as a “melodrama” that “trivializes the process of ad-making,” while Mr. Sirowitz and Ms. Green both labeled it a “soap opera.”

Ms. Green, of Avis ad fame, went on to say, “Frankly, it isn’t advertising as I knew it.” Still, she added, she can see the value of tying the documentary to the series: “Hitching your wagon to a star like that is important in terms of a reality check.”

The new documentary also explores the digital revolution since the turn of the last century, the effects of social media and trends like the rise of content marketing. Those subjects are discussed by senior executives at some of today’s leading agencies, who include Gerry Graf of Barton F. Graf 9000, David Lubars of BBDO North America, Tham Khai Meng of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide and David Sable of Y&R.

Mr. Lubars, in a phone interview, said he would agree that “Mad Men” is a soap opera.

“On the other hand, some things, they get it,” he added, and there are “story arcs that are uncomfortably true.”

Mr. Lubars, who is chairman and chief creative officer at BBDO North America, praised the One Club for “preserving and furthering the education of the public on the rich history of this industry and this city.”

“You have to know what’s done to know what can be done,” he added. “You have to know the rules to break them.”

“The Real Mad Men and Women of Madison Avenue” is co-produced by the One Club with a PBS television station in New York, WLIW, in association with WNET, the parent of WLIW and the other PBS television station in New York, WNET, called Thirteen to distinguish it from the parent.

There was already a connection between the One Club and PBS: the PBS series “Independent Lens,” which is devoted to documentaries, bought rights to “Art & Copy” and broadcast it in 2010. That made “Art & Copy” eligible for consideration by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which gave it an Emmy Award in 2011 for outstanding arts and cultural programming.

“After we premiered ‘Art & Copy’ in 2009 at Sundance, Neal Shapiro came to me to chat about doing a documentary focusing on New York, yesterday and today, as the advertising hub,” said Mary Warlick, chief executive at the One Club and one of two executive producers of “The Real Mad Men and Women of Madison Avenue.” Her reference was to the president of WNET and Thirteen.

The other executive producer of the documentary, Mary Lockhart, an executive producer at WNET, said that after she researched the creative revolution of the ’60s, she found, “There’s another revolution going on,” which warrants that description even if few people “would call it that” today.

“The Real Mad Men and Mad Women of Madison Avenue” is scheduled to make its debut at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Sunday on WLIW, with an encore at 3 a.m. on July 10. It is also to be broadcast at 8 p.m. on Sunday and midnight on Monday on Thirteen, with an encore at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

The documentary will also become available for viewing online, at thirteen.org/programs/real-mad-men. There are also plans for WNET to offer the documentary to other PBS stations.

Ms. Warlick said she was considering potential sequels to the sequel, documentaries that would chronicle the ad industry in other markets like Chicago and Detroit.

Detroit? Oops, there is another “Mad Men” connection, as anyone who recalls the plotline in the just-concluded Season 6 about the Chevrolet account would attest.