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September 21, 2009 | By: Reess Kennedy
Theme Music and Program Branding
How Mad Men's own advertising team has me sold on watching a boring show
I’m writing this while watching AMC’s Mad Men thinking what I thought last Sunday at this time, “Why the heck do I keep watching this show? Nothing happened during this episode … again.”
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s “critically acclaimed.” In fact, it just picked up its second Emmy for best drama last night. But drama?! Certainly not the drama I am accustomed to: someone gets a raise, someone gets fired, someone dies of old age, someone has a baby. What’s the big deal? Forget Seinfeld, if ever there was a show about nothing, it’s Mad Men.
Yes, I’ll admit the time period series “looks cool” but are looks enough to overcome the meandering, inconsequential plot? Moreover, is there something more to Mad Men that has me watching?
My attachment to the show has something to do with the Mad Men brand. I’ve been brainwashed into becoming a repeat viewer by the same cool, calculating Madison-Avenue-mad-men advertising execs the show is about.
How’d I come to this conclusion? I’ve decided I keep on watching Mad Men because I like the packaging. It’s the same reason many of us choose one product over another — we get caught up in how things look on the surface.
I’ve written about trends with television show names and how important program names are, and the title of the show is a part of “the packaging,” but television show branding extends further. It’s the same stuff the creatives at Sterling Cooper wrangle with everyday: how do we create a brand, a look, a series of sounds that make our viewers feel something?
In the case of Mad Men, this feeling is achieved in the opening credits. I’ve reached a point where I get more excited about the opening credits and the play offs to commercials, which use the same “branding,” than I do while watching the actual show.
The music is critical. The theme music for Mad Men by RDJ2 is this modern sounding electronica, mixed with a mysterious, almost melancholic string orchestral sound — this cool audio is played over animation that ends with an equally modern, minimalistic image of Don Drapper relaxed, smoking on a sofa, his gaze forward, his back to the world.
To me this music, this imagery, this … branding, makes me feel excited. It’s almost like this is the desirable modern aesthetic: the crisp Italian suite, the energetic drums and the thudding, cool baseline that I want associated with my own brand. This is the music that plays in my head when I’m walking down the street in my Sunday formal wear and the music I want people to hear when they see me coming toward them. It’s a show locked in the 60′s, but the aspirational packaging is timeless. Every man wants a part of the cool power of the Mad Men brand, and every women wants a man with the brand’s confidence.
The whole thing reminds me of those beautiful, modern chairs you see see in a Tribeca furniture store. They look great: sleek, hip and ridged — all qualities I want to be associated with. Problem is: beyond looks, I’m not sure how comfortable that chair is.
This is how I feel about Mad Men. I’ve bought into this sleek brand but I actually don’t get much out of what’s beneath the opening credits. And I need to have the whole package to think something is Emmy worthy.
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James said,
September 22, 2009 @ 9:56 am
I don’t understand how people keep saying nothing happens on this show! tons of stuff happens, its just a slowly unfolding character-driven plot. everything is subtext. i know in today’s gossip girl world things move at the speed of light but episodes of mad men beg to be watched and re-watched and analyzed.
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September 22, 2009 @ 9:58 am
Okay, I have been watching for a while now … the thing is the only reason I think I sometimes watch besides the theme music is because I always think something significant happens and nothing really does … what’s the subtext? If Drapper were secretly Sterling’s lover or something, that would be something but … this past week when the English dude go run over by the tractor is was almost laughable because it seemed so out of context given the pace of the show.
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James said,
September 22, 2009 @ 9:59 am
i think the tractor scene was hilarious on purpose:
http://i38.tinypic.com/219bae8.jpg
mad men has a running theme of social change. the blood in the last episode is a signal of the violence of the 60s. they were talking about vietnam for the first time. joan’s dress is like jackie kennedy’s. plot-wise, i don’t think its insignificant that don … Read Moremeets connie hilton right as sterling cooper seems to be sinking. roger is practically out of a job. joan left but is proven to be more capable than ever, while her husband is a rapist loser. don is being a father for the first time and dick whitman is making more and more appearances. tons of stuff is going on! will peggy and pete leave sterling coop? will don start his own ad agency with hilton as his cornerstone account? i am dying to know what happens next.
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September 22, 2009 @ 10:01 am
This is war! No, valid points made Vida. And I’m not some sort of philistine who doesn’t appreciate quiet, pensive moments and nuance and symbolism and all that … I just have a hard time finding fictional corporate scenarios very dramatic or exciting — it’s one thing if you’re workplace is an ER and someones intestines are falling out and you have to save them … it’s another thing if you work at an ad agency and the big thing today is that your client has unreasonable expectations.
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James said,
September 23, 2009 @ 6:06 pm
Yeah, that’s my dad’s problem with the show – it’s not life and death. For me, the show is as good as the sopranos but lacks the sensationalism that the mafia brings. But even with the sopranos people complained that it was boring if someone wasn’t getting killed. And I thought almost every episode of that show was brilliant.
I do think choosing an ad agency is an interesting way to comment on US culture, and I think that is what the show, like the sopranos, is about. The sopranos was about the american dream, and mad men is about social change. I just wish mad men would make more parallels to today’s social struggles.
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