Mad-Men: 4.11 "Chinese Wall" (open spoilers)

[Acsenray]

@choie

Can someone better explain how Faye violated the Chinese Wall dealie? As I understand it, she simply got Don a meeting with one of her clients – Heinz. She didn’t tell Don anything about them; she (I suppose) spoke to her contacts at Heinz, who she knows were unhappy with their ad folks, and suggested SCDP. How is this a violation of confidentiality?

(Or was Heinz not the client, but Heinz’s ad guys were? If Heinz’s ad company is her client, then I can understand how she might be violating their trust.)

The highest quality Chinese wall doesn’t discriminate between confidential and non-confidential information. It blocks all information. Faye’s Chinese wall requires that she pretend she knows absolutely nothing about Client A when she’s working with Client B.

And that’s for her own protection really. Not all clients are going to be very understanding about these things. A lot of clients will get jittery if they think that there is any information leaking through. Business managers can be very touchy with regard to these kinds of things.

[alphaboi867]

@choie

…(Or was Heinz not the client, but Heinz’s ad guys were? If Heinz’s ad company is her client, then I can understand how she might be violating their trust.)

Bingo. Faye’s company does research on behalf of the ad firms.

[choie]

Ah, thanks, alphaboi867 – I missed that nuance. Then yes, she certainly did use insider info in contacting Heinz directly to plead Don’s case.

I know acsenray is correct about it being an ethical violation even if Heinz had been her client, but personally I wouldn’t have blamed her for that action. At least both clients would’ve been better off by her arranging the meeting, and most importantly, no confidences were really betrayed.

But she did make pretty dangerous move here. And all for a guy who’s flailing. She’s not my favorite of his partners, but God knows I like her better than Megan.

(I haven’t seen the most recent episode yet, so I don’t even know if they’re still together. Don’t tell me!)

[Bridget_Burke]

Concerning Faye’s breach of The Chinese Wall: Don requested she tell him about any company she knew to be unhappy with its ad agency. Simply providing that information would have been slightly unethical.

Faye actually set up a meeting. Which was more unethical & traceable to her–therefore, more dangerous. If she had just given Don a company name, his knowledge could have been blamed on the rumormongering rife in the ad business.

By now, we know how this worked out! But I can understand not rushing through the episode. After this Sunday, we will have a long dry period. (Time for anyone who hasn’t seen every episode to catch up! Time for the rest of us to re-run various episodes, listening to the comment tracks. Time for all of us to watch Chuck or Castle–pretty good shows that don’t put us through all these mental gymnastics!)