Roger did have one really great line:
Paraphrasing:
Roger: I have good news and bad news.
Pete: Don fired Jaguar.
Roger: Oh, then I only have good news.
Would Don prefer that the agency remain a partnership? Would public ownership lead to too much inquiry into his background?
I doubt it. And (except Joan) all the partners are aware of Don’s past so if they thought it’d be a thing, I doubt Pete and Burt would have moved ahead on it.
Question about advertising:
So let’s say that SCDP develops an astronaut themed ad for Chevrolet with Hank Aaron as celebrity pitch person and the catch phrase “Vega 68- Why the Nuck Fot!” or something equally distinctive and unique and come up with SCDP exclusively for Chevrolet.
If Chevy decides they like that campaign but they don’t like Don Draper, are they free to take the slogan and the celebrity and all to another agency? Would they have to wait until a contract expired to do this? Suppose CGC had pitched an idea with Sammy Davis Jr. as a tap dancing astronaut to them in Detroit but they decided to use a bigger agency- can they tell the bigger agency “we want Sammy Davis Jr. as a tap dancing astronaut” and, if so, do they have to pay CGC for the idea? Or if they pass, can CGC then make a pitch to Maytag washer and dryers that has Sammy Davis Jr. as a tap dancing astronaut spokesperson?
A lot of that is going to depend on what sort of agreement the ad agency had with Chevrolet. Let’s start with the easy scenario first.
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The client owns the agency’s work. Remember in the episode when Don orders that all the Jaguar files be boxed up and sent to them immediately? Jaguar owned the work and Don wanted to make sure SCDP couldn’t be accused of raiding Jaguar’s files when they pitched Chevrolet.
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SCDP gets Chevrolet to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This means Chevrolet and SCDP agree not to discuss anything that was discussed in their initial meetings. This is often done in new business situations.
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SCDP gives Chevrolet its work “on spec” (speculation.) This is a no-win for an agency, but often the only way a small agency can even get its foot in the door with a big client like Chevrolet. I gathered both SCDP and CGC had to do this, which is why they were talking about their creative getting handed over to one of the large agencies.
As my old boss used to say “you can copyright the execution, but you can’t copyright the concept.” That works both ways. CGC could have pitched a tap-dancing astronaut only to have Chevrolet steal the idea and dare CGC to sue them, but if Chevrolet passed on the idea, CGC could turn it around and pitch it to Maytag.
One of my old employer’s favorite possessions is a pitch a vendor sent us, forgetting to search and replace our biggest competitor’s name in the middle of the document.
Roger said he had a check for $10,000 when he said Chevy wanted to see them. I assume Chevy had essentially purchased whatever ad was pitched to them with that money.
Likewise, Chaough said that Chevy would pick the little guys for ideas and then pass those to the big ad firms for production.
So far as the IPO goes, I think the idea was to get the proposal all worked up and ready, and then present it for a vote at the next partners’ meeting. If Joan, Bert and Peter didn’t have enough to carry the vote on their own, the hope was for the _ in Roger and Don’s eyes to carry the day. The merger of the partnerships: Again, I think the plan was to go back and present the remaining partners with a done deal–against the backdrop of each firm having lost a hefty chunk of its original business (Alfa, Jaguar/Vicks). Hard to argue with that against a huge account that you have to approve the merger to get.
Brilliant episode–perhaps the best since the heist episode that ended Sterling Cooper. My biggest gripe has been raised previously: I have a hard time believing that Herb the colossal douchebag has THAT much pull with Jaguar that he could single-handedly kill the account.
(Meanwhile, I think we need a Roger Sterling/Marie… who else can deliver the barbs like that? We need a Sharp Tongues of Mad Men spin off. :D)
The check was to cover the expenses of several people working for days to create the pitch. Moving a whole crew over to do a pitch is expensive and a lot of agencies, especially small ones, simply couldn’t afford the time. The check was to show that Chevy was serious. On the other hand, $10,000 is lunch money to GM so they could afford to waste it if the whole thing was fakery.
Pitches normally come as part of an entire package. Look at the Heinz ads shown a couple of weeks ago. You couldn’t take an idea out of one and combine it with the ideas in the other. They were different approaches. Both Chevy ads talked about adventure and power and newness but of course they would under the circumstances. Buying that wouldn’t get Chevy anything. It’s the campaign that counts. We don’t normally get to see more than the tip of the iceberg that is a complete campaign.
Exactly. They were purchasing the agency’s time and, by extension, their product. Not that they would get a finished, polished campaign out of it but I would think that whatever they created on Chevy’s dime would belong to Chevy.
Can Pete actually file for divorce? This is before no-fault divorce, and Trudy’s the once with grounds. Would her throwing him out be grounds for divorce?
Idiot is pretty obvious in both languages, even if she doesn’t remember her high school French.
I think the rent control laws were even stricter in '68.
First season six episode that makes me want to watch the next one. I can’t WAIT to hear how the other SCDP partners react to Don’s unilateral merger, especially as it’s likely to sink the IPO.
I think the car has to be the Vega; they keep referring to the XP-688, which has no corresponding publicly-known vehicle even though it sounds terribly familiar. The Vega was the XP-877, although it may have had an internal engineering predecessor. Or MM is just messing with us to keep up the suspense.
I hear you…WRT the IPO more so than the merger.
There’s plenty of time for pissing and moaning as the details of the proposed merger play out.
The IPO was already sunk by losing Vicks and Jaguar–the numbers would’ve been based on having that business.
Great episode!
Am I the only one grossed out by Roger in bed with the Stewardess? She seemed to be barely 18, worse so compared to Roger. It was interesting how the actress played the part so similarly to Megan (Roger young ex).
You can see why she’d be attracted to him, though; he’s funny, charming, has a decent body for his age, and, of course, he’s rich and generous.
Really? She’s played by Danielle Panabaker, who is 25 and looks it.
After all the talk about race last week, did you notice that neither of the black secretaries was in this episode? In fact, though I wasn’t playing close attention to the background extras, the only black face I remember was the prostitute. Who didn’t even get a line.
My wife looks around the same age as the stewardess, and she is almost 40. There was nothing about her that made me think she was barely legal.
Roger has always been with young chicks, and that is not out of the norm for successful men. If anything, Don’s choice in old-looking, frumpy broads is more odd- though we have been given explanations for that.
Was was the explanation for that?
Because Peggy doesn’t pick men, men pick her. Pete picked her (for sex) and she went with it. Abe picked her, and she went with it. Now Ted. The only one she’s rebuffed is Stan, and that was probably because of his high schooler approach.
I anyone else wondering about the Dr. being drunk and vulnerable and Megan’s mother being around the building, already attracted to him and up for extramarital play? Perhaps something can happen…
Well, since he moved into a whorehouse in his formative years, he probably lost his virginity to and went on to have sex with lots of women older than he.