Last night’s episode of Mad Men was fantastic as usual.  One of the interesting topics of focus during the episode was Draper’s lack of a signed contract.  All the major players at the agency (Sterling, Cooper, etc.) have multi-year contracts.  Draper has NEVER had a contract.  This had always been an issue, but it really became a sticking point as the agency was trying to shore up the Hilton Hotels business.

It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come as an industry.  Rarely do you see formal contracts that outline guaranteed salary, benefits, and other perks in the ad biz these days.  It just doesn’t really happen anymore.  But, this got me thinking are we better off without contracts?  Contracts are funny things.  They essentially demonstrate a pledge between two or more entities.  In its most basic format, a contract says i’ll pledge to give you great performance and you’ll pledge to pay me this amount.  Fair enough and certainly easy to understand.  We often see this type of a contract in the sports world, where so and so signed for 3 years at $5 million per year.  How often though does a player actually live up to his contract?  How often does the owner/team provide what’s necessary for the player to succeed?

Contracts protect both parties; the player and the team.  Well, at least they’re supposed to do that.  On some level they are a safety net.  But, if there’s mutual trust between both parties, do you really need a contract?  Isn’t a contract simply a way of forcing someone to stay?  Would you really want to keep someone that didn’t want to work for you?  I wouldn’t.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a more senior colleague at Leo Burnett.  He told me that if someone walks into your office and wants to resign, let them.  If they walk into your office and want to discuss their “job,” lean in and listen well.  The person who wants to discuss the job wants to stay for love of the company.  The person who walks in wanting to resign wants to stay for love of the dollar.  Good advice, if you ask me.

The closest real world example of this is marriage.  They say marriage is a contract between two people.  No it’s not.  A prenup is a contract between two people.  When you decide to get married you put your trust in one another with the intention that things will work out in the long run.  This is the reason, so many people balk at the idea of a prenup.  To consider getting a prenup is to consider the fact the marriage will not work.  No one wants to hear that from the person they want to be with forever.  However, when you consider that the divorce rate is over 50%, wouldn’t signing a contract be prudent?  Sure it would, but it also indicates a lack of trust.

So the real question we need to ask is, do we need a contract if you have trust?  Certainly something to ponder.

MadMen is a show on AMC that’s centered around the advertising agency business. As AMC puts it, MadMen is “Set in 1960s New York, the sexy, stylized and provocative AMC drama Mad Men follows the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men and women of Madison Avenue advertising, an ego-driven world where key players make an art of the sell.” It’s a good show, a really great show. Here is a clip from Season 1.

Unfortunately, it seems like majority of companies are still buying advertising space based on demographics. Company X, which for the purposes of this argument is BMW, will buy space on show Y, which for the purposes of this conversation is MadMen, because people between the ages of A and B who make somewhere between M and R watch the show. If we assume that’s who’s watching the show, we wouldn’t take into account that a large portion of the viewing audience are advertising people. You know, people who work at agencies

If my hypothesis is correct and agency people are a big part of the audience, wouldn’t companies, like BMW raise the bar on the creative? Running the same creative they run on every other channel seems silly to me because the viewing audience is much more sophisticated. I’ve been taking note of the ads that are running during the episodes and assigning them letter grades from A – F. The average letter grade is a D. I also casually looked at the critical reviews of the ads that had reviews available, and the pundits seem to agree with me.

Aren’t these just wasted dollars? Why aren’t we being smarter about the ads we create? Shouldn’t we consider the audience we’re speaking to, the show we’re running on, and may other factors when creating ads. Well, I do. MadMen is the perfect test kitchen for ads. Where else can companies get free feedback from other agencies about their work?

C’mon people, we can be better. We can be smarter. We can make this work. We just need to think things out a little bit more.