Mad Men (and Women) Twittering With Fans

One of the fun things about Social Media is that you can blur the lines between reality and fiction. A great example is the Twitter outreach from the characters on AMC's brilliant show, Mad Men.

All of the main characters: Don, Joan, Paul, sneaky, smarmy little Pete, Peggy, and Sal ... etc. exist within the Twittersphere and they converse with their followers just as their characters would.

Peggy comments on the show's themes like her role as the first female copywriter at Sterling Cooper: "You are absolutely right. I don't want to be just like the boys." Or, on recent plot points: "Father Gill is new to the parish, but my mother seems eager to make him a member of the family."

Don talks a bit about the Belle Jolie pitch and other client work; and when some Twitterers offer their thoughts on an upcoming campaign, he responds: "You're both jumping the gun. We don't even have concepts yet."

The best part is in his back-and-forth with followers, he remains perfectly in character - even down to the occasional slap. (When a follower comes at Don about his infidelities, he responds: "Maybe you should put down the joint and work on your spelling, punctuation and grammar.") And, I have to give kudos for a solid response to one Twitterer who said he'd heard Don lost the Lucky Strike account to which Don replies, "I don't indulge in rumors and gossip." From a media relations position, well done, Draper!

And, overall, kudos to the entire team behind this initiative. It's got to be incredibly time-consuming to stay on top of all of these conversations but I'm sure it is well worth it. At the time of this writing, the characters have more than 2,000 followers collectively. And, I'm sure those numbers will grow as the series continues.

A big part of why I love this is that, once again, Social Media is allowing a brand to personally interact with its target audience and that brand is willing to have a little fun online. As the blogger, MediaPhyter said, "I almost feel like I am there with them at Sterling Cooper when I am reading their tweets. Never mind the fact, of course, that I don’t think Don Draper would ever be bothered with Twitter even if they had it in the 1960s."

Now, I know this is not a new tactic. Many other entertainment properties have engaged their characters within Twitter. Brian Morrissey of AdWeek recently wrote about the Sci-Fi Channel's entrance into the Twittersphere for its show Eureka and how challenging it is for the show's people to keep up with the conversations.

But, since I'm a fan of Mad Men, it was this campaign that caught my eye. And, the SM engagement doesn't stop with Twitter. Some fans have created Tumblrs including: What Would Don Draper Do? in which people pose situations and post back-and-forth on how Don would handle them, usually making references to recent episodes. As far as I can tell, this is not an official AMC promotion and its popularity has since spawned more character Tumblrs for Joan, Pete, and Roger. (It seems Peggy has one coming soon too.)

My only criticism of the Mad Men Twitter campaign is that the link for Sterling Cooper the company, takes you to the AMC Mad Men page. Now, I'm sure this is good news for AMC because they are enjoying the web site traffic. However, I would have kept up the ARG and created a Sterling Cooper company site. In it, they could include the same sort of content they have on the TV page, only make it sound like a legit company. For example, Meet Sterling Cooper's Staff could mark interviews with John Haam who plays Don and Elisabeth Moss who plays Peggy. Episode recaps could be presented in the form of a Portfolio. Likewise, there is a contest on the AMC site where you can win a role on Mad Men - they could have made that Apply For An Internship. Of course, I suppose an argument could be made that there was no Internet in the 60s, so Sterling Cooper wouldn't have a web site. But, as the blogger I referenced earlier mentioned, Twitter didn't exist then either.

Either way, since I personally can't get enough of this show, I am loving this campaign!

-- my two cents