I won’t disagree with that, but Betty I’m sure can justify it to herself.
Yeah, sorry. “Bobby” not “Billy.”
I think Faye has only begun to “probe” Don. He’ll reveal more to her later and then …
I think part of making Henry less skeevy this season is to make it clear to fans that most/all of Betty’s problems have nothing to do with Don. But, yeah. It’s going to end badly. She’ll “wake up” one day and realize what a hole he helped put her in.
I presume you mean from Sterling Cooper (pre-split, I do not think his name was on the door), and it was a “theft” as it relates to “employees and clients” in only the most hyperbolic sense, as those things are not chattel to be owned. I’ll grant, there might have been some “property” stolen in the form of pens, notepads, and, more likely, files but nothing that is out of the ordinary for firm splits. It was a genius business move – pawn (Lane) takes queen (London firm) – and there was simply nothing immoral, unethical or “bad” about it. Same goes for the Honda ruse. And you’re too dismsissive of the value* of the “possibility” of running the Honda auto campaign. Don has done lots of things that warrant the title of first class of shitheel, there’s no need to reach or embelish.
- not that it’s less wrong to do something for lots of money as opposed to for free.
It was Sterling Cooper Draper at that point, and regardless of how brilliant the move was (and it was), it did amount to theft of intellectual property, breaking and entering, property theft, and business espionage. Justifiable and clever and a triumphant moment, but not free of moral or ethical issues.
Also, he may not have forced the other firm to bankrupt themselves by breaking the rules and making a new commercial, but he was very calculated in his manipulation, knew the likely outcome, and didn’t lose sleep over it. Again, even if it’s justifiable and triumphant, I don’t think it’s free of ethical issues.
They’re both examples of Don being willing to step outside of boundaries and break the rules that he doesn’t want to deal with. I think that requires a certain outlook of the world that while isn’t immoral may be classified as amoral. Just like I think it takes a special kind of skeevy to hit on a married pregnant woman (honestly that scene always reminds me of the joke of picking up chicks outside an abortion clinic since you know they gave it up at least once).
No, the name of the firm was Sterling Cooper until its merger with McCann, which happened after the events of “Shut the Door, Have a Seat.”
What intellectual property was stolen? Clients are not intellectual property. Though the name “Sterling Cooper” ( I’d like to see a cite for Draper being on the door at the time of the split. A reference to an episode would be fine.) is intellectual property, it’s also comprised of the last names of Roger Sterling and Bert Cooper. The campaigns themselves were also IP, but the client likely owned any slogan or jingle. Lane, Pegggy, Harry and Pete still had access to the building, so there’s no B&E - trust me, security escorts you out after an unfriendly split. It was only the partners who were severed, so they could be let out of their non-competes. Lane wasn’t sacked until Monday. I would like an example of illegal corporate espionage. The reason the move was brilliant is because it was legal. If it weren’t, there would have been no point. It’s not like PP&L or McCann, or whoever would have had the claim, couldn’t afford a legal fight. It’s that they knew they would lose. Anyone who has any moral or ehtical issues with the scooter scam has no business in business. It was a head fake, and a good one. In short, there’s a great case to be made against Don but the downfall of Sterling Cooper doesn;t play into it. Not in my mind at least. Nothing sleazy about it.
Presumably they took the campaigns when they took the clients, which I think would count as intellectual property. And I didn’t mean B&E as in they were literally slamming hammers through windows to get in, but they didn’t have access to everything (after all, Don did break down that door).
Look, they knew they were doing something wrong. It was in almost every single dialogue and every reaction shot (like when Harry walked in with Pete and Pete announced loudly “Harry’s here”). Were they violating the letter of the law? I don’t know since I’m not familiar with the legalities of the situation, in 2010 or 1963. But I do know they took a business they didn’t own apart piece by piece and then used those pieces to build a competitor. Maybe I’m crazy, but I always thought it was frowned upon to take clients and intellectual property owned by a specific business when leaving that business, and doing so in the middle of a Friday night in a frantic, rushed, destructive manner doesn’t convince me that they were in 100% morally in the clear.
I’m not in business and I do think manipulating somebody into their own destruction is a moral gray area. I guess I better avoid cutthroat professions, because I’m not sure I would have the stomach to expertly cut just enough rope to let somebody hang themselves and then pick their pockets while their feet were still kicking. I’m assuming a man that can do that without a twinge has a different moral outlook on the world, and that’s all I was trying to say. To me, Don has clear moments of…coldness outside his personal life. I don’t think he’s a 100% likable guy as long as you ignore the fact that he can’t keep his dick in his pants.
Don’t the ad campaings (& associated documents) belong to the clients? IIRC correctly they compiled a list of clients who agreed to switch to the new agency before raiding the office.
Could it be that the characters are—ever so slightly—less stuffy, conservative and “bottled up” as each season progresses, particularly evident this season? Consider just the couple of examples mentioned up-thread: Don cathartically opening up about his personal problems; Pete openly discussing Roger’s drinking problem, etc. You would not expect this type of disclosure and openness in the late 1950’s/early 60’s, when society pretty much kept things of a personal nature to themselves, in the guise of interpersonal propriety and business decorum. But, you *would *expect a loosening up as we approach the mid-60’s—a time when we, at least the younger generation (with spillage to society at large), began the paradigm shift bridging the conservative 50’s to the *anything goes *‘70’s. Ad agencies in particular, would be populated with employees having a finger on the pulse of society, I would think, and as such would be in lockstep with the changes as they occurred. Mad Men’s cutaways to televised news stories appear to be highlighting these societal changes, so I think the loosening of characters is deliberate on behalf of the show’s writers. Just another example of brilliant writing, IMHO.
Taking the “paradigm shift of society” concept into the future with respect to Mad Men, here’s how I predict it will (or, at least should) play out:
Most of the pre-30 y.o. characters will embrace the liberal 60’s shift and change accordingly:
Peggy will blossom in the free-love movement and come to terms with her sexuality…she may get into trouble by associating with an ever-growing list of leftist friends, however.
Pete spent a great deal of effort developing his conservative business persona in order to excel as a 1950’s-style ad agency hot shot, so change will be hard for him at first. But, change he will—even having fun when he removes the stick from his ass.
Joan will get a boob job and start reading Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem.
Betty will have a mental breakdown, leave her family, turn on, tune in, drop out, and become a Deadhead groupie.
The older generation:
Lane will remain unchanged, but he succeeds being the odd man out now, so being more of an odd man out in the future won’t hurt him one iota.
Bert will change, happily, with the times because he’s too street-smart and conniving not to.
Don will change, with regret, with the times because he’s too competitive and intelligent not to. (But, if he starts wearing Neru jackets and attending EST seminars, when we get to the early 70’s, I’m taking :mad:-Men off my Tivo list :()
Roger will not change with the times. He’ll become less and less relevant as time progresses—an anachronistic 1950’s ad man in the me-generation; a tragic figure.
What ethical issues? I mean, of course he manipulated them. That was the point. But it was neither illegal nor immoral. I wouldn’t have lost any sleep over it either.
I would. The other firm has employees, who are going to inconvenienced, at the very least, and impoverished, at worst, by what happened. That would bother me, because my actions would lead to hardship to others.
I think it’s allowable, because Don did not force the choice onto his competitor, and ultimately what he did was merely a time-compressed version of what competing businesses do to one another all the time. Also, I don’t think the other company is actually going to be bankrupted in the short term; rather, they’ll be much less competitive at least for he rest of that year.
I work for a large corporation y’all have all heard of, and in the past worked for its largest competitor. Both companies have an annual convention for their sales staffs, and at each convention it’s common to hear, as a common theme, the message that our jobs are to put the other company out of business. This is said mostly jokingly and motivationally, but I’m sure nothing would please my current CEO than to see the other company in Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The same can be said for any sales pitch whether there’s manipulation or not. Do you do your best and get the account? Well then you took money out of the other company’s coffers. What if they have to fire someone for that? What if they have to send someone to the streets. There wasn’t unemployment in the 1960s. You just ran through your savings and then you died. How many men has Don killed?
How many ad men’s children have wound up as orphans? How many secretaries from failed firms have resorted to prostitution?
How far do you want to take a guilt trip because you can do your job better than someone else?
I didn’t say I wouldn’t do what Don did–just that I wouldn’t be easy about it. I think he approached the line, because he was consciously manipulating the other firm into damaging itself.
Don had two agendas in this plan. No, three. One was to create a situation in which he could demonstrate his firm’s (apparent) honor and thus atone for Roger’s behavior. No problem with that. The second was to reduce the competitive ability of the other ad agency. That’s iffy, but I think ultimately allowable because he does not force the other agency to do anything, and (as I myself pointed out), it’s just a compressed version of what all businesses do to their competitors anyway. He’d have to go further to make it unethical.
His third motive, of course, was to stick it to the blond guy at the other agency, because that guy was both threatening and vexing him.
I have no problems with what Don did (especially in terms of a TV show) but Lane says, while meeting with Don after the caper, that he let it go through because he “realized that the demise of CGC was essential to the future success of SCDP”. Whether or not CGC is dead remains to be seen but the implication is that they intended to at least seriously and permanently cripple CGC.
It was worse than that. Joan asked Roger to stop because her husband would be in uniform very shortly and the last thing she needed was stories about how Roger’s friends were horribly killed overseas. Roger was so wrapped up in trying to get someone into his corner that he was being a pretty serious dick to someone he cares deeply about.
Weiner and the writers have certainly read the books by and about mad men in the 1960s. David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Advertising Man appears in 1963 and was obviously the inspiration for the season opener. The Roger meltdown was an homage to Jerry Della Femina’s 1970 From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor.
Ogilvy was the stuffiest guy on Madison Avenue, just as Della Femina was the wildest. The smaller the compay, the wilder it could be, and the wilder the guys, the more they wanted to start their own firms. They were a lot of wild guys around in the 1960s, and they did it without drugs or the counterculture. Alcohol ensued.
Every small new firm started by a bunch of creative guys leaving and taking clients with them. Remember, clients owned everything. It was their campaigns, not the agencies. They could walk at any time and did so with ulcer-inducing frequency.
Pranks, underhanded tricks, deceit, and perhaps some downright illegalities were practiced on other firms apparently on a daily basis. (Of course, the memoirs give us only the good stuff not the day-to-day drudgery.) There are lots and lots of books on this, and I’ve read almost all the major ones. The stuff shown on Mad Men is tame compared to the reality, because the reality wouldn’t look real. It would look forced and phony. But this season’s background scenes feel far more true-to-the-period than the stuffy office of seasons past.
It’s interesting how McCann is the whipping boy of the series. But starting in the 1970s, with the Coca-Cola commercial, McCann began a series of advertising triumphs.
I think the dollhouse shot may be a set-up for a future episode. Betty clearly didn’t understand the purpose of the toys in the room, which are used for play therapy. Children will often express their feelings more easily with dolls, etc., than they will in words. My child psych teacher told me about a dollhouse scenario with a patient, where within five minutes the child had the father figure stuffed head first into the toilet. It pretty much narrowed the problem down.
As I said upthread and as others have noted, the campaigns belonged to the clients. They “stole” the clients, but that happens in almost every split. How else would the new venture have any work? The “cover of night” business is partly to avoid confrontation, but mainly to maintain the element of surprise. You don’t want your soon-to-be-former employer circling the wagons. You want to hit him while he’s asleep such that by the time he’s found out what happened, it’s all over. I have been on both sides of firm splits. This is simply how it happens. Had there been a clear legal wrong, PP&L or McCann or whoever would have sued.
They didn’t want to get caught because they didn’t want to surrender the element of surprise. Once they made the decision to break, the die was cast. There was no going back to PP&L. They had to maximize the potential of the soon-to-be SCDP.
You’re burning a bridge, make no mistake. In this case, it was an act of self-preservation. Sterling Cooper had just been sold for parts. Still it’s not “frowned upon” by anyone other than the agrieved. Stealing clients is not breaking rules; it’s the name of the game. You need to get convinced that there was nothing unseemly about this. Having been on both sides of these splits, I can attest that once the dust settles and the wounds scab, the consensus is generally “nothing personal, just business.”
You’re probably right. If you don’t want to (legally) destroy your competition, then you shouldn’t be in business.
…I seriously hate to be the one to bring this up but… has anyone mentioned the possibility that Henry is molesting Sally?
She’s pretty young for masturbation right? Nowadays isn’t that a potential red flag for abuse?