When Don meets with Conrad Hilton in Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency, he disappoints the hotel tycoon by not thinking “bigger.” It would appear that Hilton has more in mind for Don than enlisting his help to improve the ill-conceived “Jerry” mouse ad campaign.
However, Don explains that, like a snake which can only handle one meal at a time, Don is only seeking “one opportunity at a time.” In this case, Don has already had his one meal; a chicken salad at home with Betty. So, he’s not hungry when Hilton offers him a Waldorf salad.
From a 1960′s business perspective, Don’s attitude is not really all that unusual. Marketers of that era operated under a more short-sighted “transactional” approach which stressed making the sale above all other considerations. Apparently, losing a client was viewed as a normal part of business. In Love Among the Ruins, Bert Cooper is irked about being summoned into Layne Pryce’s office after the loss of the Campbell Soup UK account. Cooper testily explains that if he were dragged into Pryce’s office every time a client leaves Sterling-Cooper, he’d “wear out the carpet.” In Out of Town, Don chides Peggy for not focusing simply on what the customer wants for the Patio campaign rather than what would work best.
It wouldn’t be until the 1980′s that business academia would see the shortcomings of the “transactional” strategy and began stressing the value of “relationship marketing.”
From “Relationship Marketing of Services”Growing Interest, Emerging Perspectives” (Leonard Berry, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 1995):
The phrase “relationship marketing” appeared in the services marketing literature for the first time in a 1983 paper…Berry defined relationship marketing as “attracting, maintaining, and”in the multi-service organizations”enhancing customer relationships. He stressed the attraction of new customers should only be viewed as an intermediate step in the marketing process. Solidifying the relationship, transforming indifferent customers into loyal ones, and serving customers as clients should also be considered as marketing.
Thus, like all the other relationships in Don’s life, it makes sense that his modus operandi in the business arena is often flawed as well.
27 Responses to “Pig in a Python”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Mari, I tend to agree that Don shows enormous creativity, but isn't all that cutting edge. He was behind the times on Nixon, on Lucky Strike, and more. He wears the hat; Pete and Elvis don't.
Don is also loyal, at least in business.
Didn't want to drop Mohawk for a pitch at another, bigger airline.
Unlikely to agree to the idea of leaving Sterling Cooper on a whim (I got the feeling Connie was more interested in hiring Don away as a person to work for his company, than Don's agency for an ad.)
"Not to be flippant, but I’d need lunch if the last meal I ate was dinner last night."
I think Matt was talking about the symbolism, not the literal reality–obviously Don needs to eat more than one meal during the course of an episode that spans about 24 hours, but showing Don having a meal at one point and turning down another at a later point symbolically illustrates his "one thing at a time" mentality.
I absolutely loved that chicken salad, Ritz, and beer dinner. Really, I think watching Don eat a Ritz cracker for dinner was one of my favorite shots in the show. In a way it captures the era as well as any amount of suits and furniture. People still eat Ritz crackers, of course (I love 'em) but rich people for dinner? Not so much.
Do you think Betty ever made the Mock Apple Pie recipe that used to be on every box? My mom did.
I don't think the business relationship stuff is that cut-and-dried. Social change never is. Don's old school, but remember, he was the only one who thought fleecing HoHo with his idiotic jai alai account was a bad idea. Modern Pete was all gung ho for that. Where does that fit on the transactional-relational axis?
#3 riverdaughter – I don't agree with that evaluation of Don. Don's a partner (or was before the buyout) – and is still expected to generate business for the firm. He does so through creative ideas for clients, not by repping each account. But his job as CD is useless without clients, so he needs to make it rain.
I really like Matt's premise, which dovetails with a wonderful movie I saw a few weeks ago called Art & Copy (Matt Weiner refers to it in his interview with Tavis Smiley, linked previously). In the film, a documentary on the history of advertising over the last 50 years, they interview all the major agency players about their early experiences.
The essence of the film is that their biggest achievement was the selling of advertising itself. In the pre-Mad Men days, it was all about dry copy, lifeless product illustrations and boring headlines, mostly because that's what the clients asked for – like filling a prescription or ordering a pizza. This is the same as what Matt says ("… stressed making the sale above other considerations."
But what these ad people did – Bernbach, Lois, Wells, Goodby, Riney, etc. – was convince the clients that what they wanted was exactly the OPPOSITE of what they were asking for. The introduction of humor, as exemplified by the Lemon VW ad, was the first glimmer of this. Don, as we know, is not initially on board ("You need to make advertising for people who may not have a sense of humor" – Don in FTWTY)
They sold their clients on better advertising first … and then they had the freedom to create more and better creative.
This is what Peggy was seeking when she dismissed the Patio approach – leading to Don's chiding. I would guess that Connie's entreaty to Don will begin to take him in this direction. Everything we see shows that Don adapts and absorbs what he sees. We met Don as a guy on top of the world who eschewed research, but later learned it can help. He brought back a new perspective from California, which is informing his work and his life. His encounter with Hilton, wherever it leads, will definitely continue this trend – Don will think bigger still.
Don was the one who saw the long-term opportunity with MSG. Seeing potential 30 years out is transactional?
And, as freelancewoman says, Don was the one who tried to push back against dropping their long-term client Mohawk, exactly because he saw it as a relationship built on trust and future potential.
Maybe I'm missing your meaning about the difference between transactional and relationship marketing in the case of SC or Don in particular.
I'm not exactly sure what Don would have said differently to Connie from a "relationship marketing" angle. VP of Marketing in-house at Hilton? Somehow I don't think that's a particularly more intriguing or fulfilling idea for Don right now.
I'm holding out for Connie to assist Don in the financing of a private buyout of SC from PPL!
I'm a part-time marketing instructor. So, I'm sure that colored my reaction to Don's attitude with Connie that instantly struck me as correlating to the dominant business philosophy of the time.
hasn’t Sterling Cooper been shepherding their clients all along?
Well, yes. Like most things, it’s not all black and white. But there's a subtle, yet real, difference between generating a series of individual transactions with a client and actually taking a more deliberately holistic "relationship" approach to cultivate that account. A lumberjack can cut down one tree at a time or map out a plan to take down the entire forest. Or, to put it another way, a hobo tends to be more interested in the next meal than where he got his last one.
To be completely fair, nowadays lots of businesses in the real world still honor the idea of being a "relationship" driven in the breach as the tools they use to measure success (sales quotas, stock prices) are more geared toward "transactions."
But, as I said, the concept seemed to be shouting at me as I watched.
(BTW, #7 b cooper "Art and Copy" sounds interesting)
BCooper: I am not disagreeing with you that Don would be irresponsible for not trying to reel Connie in. I'm just saying that his area is the creative aspect of the business, not managing the accounts. That's Pete or Ken's job. So, yes, it is perfectly within the realm of reality for Don to court Connie for his business but at some point, Don has to back away because it's not his job description.
If it were, he would have told Connie's secretary to schedule a meeting for later in the week and then been more prepared with a pitch based on research and stuff like that.
It's not the least surprising to me that Don did not approach his meeting with Connie in that manner. He's not an account guy. His mind doesn't work that way. Don is a big picture guy.
What I get from Don is that he has intuition. This has steered him toward opportunity, away from trouble, and to and from people, all his life.
Intuition is Don's strength, and we see evidence of it in scenes where he and Peggy bounce ideas off each other. Don can shoot an idea across the room, and she'll go running after it … with words. Sal seems able to do the same with pictures.
I don't know whether to call intuition "creative" or "imaginative", but I think it's closer to the latter than the former. I do know that Einstein mentioned it, and I believe that humans can't live without it.
Before I forget, Matt Maul: a hearty thanks for this post. You've illuminated an area of American business about which I know almost nothing. Great job!
I will say, PPL seems to have a transactional approach than SC. MSG? Why, that would require we put on more staff! And it might not pay off in the next two years!
Funny, at the same time businesses switched from a transactional to a relationship approach in terms of their clients, they reversed it from the point of view of their commitment to their employees. Since the 1980s, we have all become simply transactional units for the corporation.
See? I thought Don's response to Connie was right on the money. All too often I've seen companies jump at business they weren't equipped to handle, only to see the rest of their business adversely affected as a result. Sterling Cooper is in the midst of huge organizational changes, and probably shouldn't be trying for ALL of the Hilton business at this point. Asking for a chunk of it is a smart strategy — test the waters first, to see how everyone works together. Don likes clients and accounts that he can manage, that let him do things his way. Getting a portion of the Hilton business will probably give him more creative freedom than he'd have if they charged him with all their advertising projects.
I'm writing a proposal for a company right now that's in no way qualified for the project on which they're bidding. They're a relatively new company, with less than $75,000 in revenue over the last year, yet they're trying to bid on a project that pays $3-5 million a year. They can't even capitalize the start-up costs for a project like that, but they insist on going through with the bid. On the off-chance that they win, they're going to have major issues.
So, what DO you suppose Connie was hoping for or expecting when he asked Don that question?
I was a little bit puzzled. And he sure looked disappointed in Don, until the snake-charmer did his work.
I used to work in a field (not advertising) that had a similar creatives vs. accounts give and take.
The closest person to a Don Draper-type I ever encoutnered was also an excellent salesman. He knew his ideas would never be executed if he couldn't convince "the suits" that they were viable and cutting edge. He had people excited about his concepts and literally cheering when he was done presenting.
Conversely, on of the best pure creative types I ever encountered was a seemingly social outcast who managment usually kept hidden away. He was brilliant, but couldn't present himself or his ideas without outside help.
My point is that Don did not become Don by simply being good at his job. He sells it to the people who want to buy it.
#14 gypsie – My take is that Connie sees Don as being like himself: an entrepreneur. Even if Don works for a company, his style is entrepreneurial.
So when Don says: I want your business … it's as if he's speaking for his company, like "Come be our client, and join all the other clients here."
Connie's version of "think bigger" is that Don would effectively either jump ship and ask him for a high-paying job within Hilton, or tell him that he would set up a new shop with Hilton as his first (and most important) account. Probably the latter. I think this was mentioned ealier on one of the threads.
When Don says "you didn't get to be who you are by giving things away for free" (or something to that effect), that's him trying to put himself on Connie's level. But Connie's way past that … he got to be who he is by getting other people to give him things for free.
Connie expected Don to be an entrepreneur, but he stumbled by acting like a company man. The snake line got him out of it …
I thought Don was rattled (no pun intended) in the scene with Connie. He regained his composure, but it was clear Connie was testing him and he was caught off guard.
I asked this queston on another post. What is that around the cobra's neck? Is it being chocked by it's own tail?
Not to be flippant, but I’d need lunch if the last meal I ate was dinner last night.
Don is creative, not imaginative. Conrad Hilton needed to be both, while Don still is growing from the Whitman seed–poor, hardworking, pragmatic. Don will take the tangible cold leftovers over the yet-to-be-procured haute cuisine. I think (and hope) that his willingness to settle is coming to an end as we get deeper into this season. I can’t wait, Corporate-Don sucks when he’s playing it safe.
@10 riverdaughter: if Don had done that, Connie would have sent him away. Connie, at least as he's presented in the show, is a tough old bird who came from nothing, and sees the same thing in Don (you know how Don seems to reflect whatever people WANT to see, though in reality he's not so much "self made" as he is "self made-up"). He's already got "people"; Hilton has a huge staff and a big-time ad agency already. What he's looking for is a no-BS guy to bypass all that marketing crap and tell it like it is. That's why he's talking to Don in his hotel suite instead of in a meeting room full of account people. Connie HATES account people, I'm guessing.
I don't know how realistic that is, but it's an opportunity that not even Don is going to get very often. And it makes perfect dramatic sense in the story. It's a bit idealized for me; even Connie Hilton by this time was part of a vast corporation with established methods and procedures. Somewhere in another room is going to be some Hilton staff who are PISSED!
Wow! That’s not how I read that scene at all. Don had the chicken salad the night before. Therefoire, he should have been famished if he hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch by the time he met with Connie.
As for the transactional stuff, um, he wasn’t exactly prepared to make a pitch to grab Connie’s business even if he’d wanted to at that very moment. He had no advance warning and didn’t even know until he got there that Connie was the guy he met at the country club.
And I don’t know much about business marketing theory, what I’ve seen in real life has not impressed me in the least, but hasn’t Sterling Cooper been shepherding their clients all along? Remember the new campaign they rolled out for Maidenform, their long term client? Maidenform reserved the right to use the ad in the future. Then there was Admiral. And Harry was reposnsible for seeing that Maytag didn’t have an agitator problem in the TV scripts.
Besides, Don is not an account man. Well, not officially. Don is the talent. It’s his job to come up with the ideas, not to snooker clients into signing with SC. So, with Connie, he is kind of going outside of his job description trying to land Hilton Hotels in the first place. That’s unfamiliar territory and even though PPL has been an unwelcome presence for some time, it’s not something you rush into. One step at a time. Which is what he told Connie. He is going to proceed cautiously. He was burned already once that day. Why overreach? No need to.
I have read several blogs on this episode and no one is mentioning the use of lights and darkness. From the daughter's fear of darkness, to the light of the overhead projector flipping on, to the last scene of Don and his daughter sitting in the dark with the baby. I was half expecting a GE account…
hull …
I am wondering how you’ll manage to write a proposal like that.
Does it feel to you the way Don’s lunch with HoHo must have felt to him? Do you have the urge to include the words, “let me give you a piece of advice” in the text?
@20 Emily, Sally even said “I know, you’re not Thomas Edison”. These people all live in the dark, don’t they?
I understand that the ad game has changed dramatically, from the era of Don Draper to today, but isn’t the object of the exercise to have the client’s goods flying off the shelves?
Don summed his philosophy and approach to Duck (and the others) in the board room: “I sell products, I don’t sell advertising.â€
on my Twitter Deck today:
Name: Zappos.com CEO -Tony
Location: Las Vegas
zappos: “A great company is more likely to die of indigestion from too much opportunity than starvation from too little” -Packard’s Law
@ #21 Anne B:
I had a meeting with the client that went exactly like the one with Don and Hoho. Almost word for word. LOL. They even gave me the “if we fail, it’s your fault” line.
Sigh. I hate this economy. No way I’d even entertain something like this under more normal conditions.
This episode showed for me where I think maybe that Don is headed. The strongest point that I got out of marriage interruptus with Betty and Don was obviously when Betty said that things really weren’t that different without him around. This season, with all of his dfiferent interactions, I really feel like Don is trying to erase that, especially for the kids. He wants to have more reassurance that if he and Betty were to divorce, the silence would be deafening instead of the norm.
I also think that guy walks into an advertising agency was built around a theme of seeing things that aren’t there. Obviously the most visible example would be Sally and baby Gene (totally agree with her by the way, it’s creepy.) But each of the characters deals with it differently. Don and the move/promotion to London, Joan and McRapists Residency, Pryce and his position in PPL, Roger and HIS position at PPL, they all feel like these things are real and tangible, only to have them explained away through the events of the episode. Too bad they all had to deal with the very gruesome reality of Guy’s accident, instead of the happy dreams that they had built up for themselves.
#26 Stacy – re:”seeing things that aren’t there” – I agree with where your thinking leads; I saw a steady undercurrent of expectations not being met for everyone you mention. For me Bert sums it up when he straightens Roger out. Roger took the money and expects to be happy,- “I didn’t think they could hurt me” and Bert cuts right to the bone with “That was a mistake.” Don expects a promotion, Joan expects Greg’s promotion, Pryce expects a worthy reward. Sally expects Barbie to be out of her life, at least for the night. Even Connie expects Don to be more accessible or open to him than he is.
I’m interested in how they handle their mistakes, their misexpectations.
Sally screams (great,great scream BTW). Don runs out, if only for the afternoon. Joan has the most work to do. Pryce? No guesses from me.
How do we handle the world as it is?
Little flecks of detail throughout – snakes, appetites and ambitions, hopes and plans, mistakes – all jelled for me when I saw Connie’s ad boards. “The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry”.