Don Draper on Branding



In anticipation of next week’s premier of the second season of the fantastic original series Mad Men on the AMC network, I wanted to share and discuss this scene from last season of the show’s main character Don Draper pitching Kodak’s Carousel slide projector.

This scene is set in the fictional 1960’s Madison Avenue advertising agency that is the primary setting of the show; a time that’s well before the term “branding” was in common use. This is back when ad agencies were hired to recommend the core positioning of their client’s product or service and communicate that position to the public on their behalf. This is what we call branding today -- connecting the core message of the product to the consumer and setting the expectation of performance. Unfortunately today most ad agencies skip positioning and just ask their clients what they want to say and are really just in business to find clever ways to say it. I should know, as earlier in my career it was my job to do the asking; now it’s to do the recommending.

In this clip Don Draper explains to the executives from Kodak that it is not the new technology of the slide projector wheel that will resonate with the costumer, but rather that customers need to “be engaged in a level beyond flash” and they must be able to have a “sentimental bond with the product”. Well said Don! This is exactly what branding is all about and what every product or service must have at the core of its brand - an emotional trigger that causes the customer to react and connect to what benefit that brand delivers.

At my firm we like to use Volvo as a great example of a brand that has the concept of Safety as the emotional trigger at the core of its brand – the one thing that their customers have been responding to – and Volvo has been delivering -- consistently for decades. Safety is great as there is not much stronger of an emotional motivator than self-preservation and protecting one’s family. In the clip, Draper taps into the emotional nostalgia and memories of one’s own childhood and family – which he demonstrates by showing slides of his own - and concludes by saying “it takes us to a place where we ache to go again…..it’s not called a wheel, it’s called a carousel”.

Whether this is an accurate depiction of how Kodak came up with the name Carousel for their rotating slide projector or not is anyone’s guess, but it’s definitely a product name that clearly and compellingly evokes the emotions of personal memories. More importantly though, this product actually delivers on that promise and that is what a good brand is all about.

Jake Crocker is a Partner and Brand Marketing Director at Martin Branding Worldwide, Inc.