Name Dropping
Behind Ebony and Jet’s MAD MEN Name Check
2009-09-15
By Eric Easter
While you and the rest of America were watching the MTV Video Music Awards and waiting for the next train wreck after the Kanye West debacle, a couple million of the remainder of TV viewers were watching a very interesting story unfold on the critically praised show MAD MEN on AMC.
For those who missed it, or don’t follow the show (which is set in the advertising world of the early 1960s), I’ll set the scene for you:
Pete Campbell, a nakedly ambitious junior ad executive inherits a list of fairly unattractive clients whose sales are lagging. One of those clients is Admiral, the old maker of television sets. Pete, noticing that the company actually has growing sales in urban areas, realizes that Admiral can gain market share if it markets to Black audiences. After polling the only Black person he knows – the elevator operator – about Black TV buying habits, Pete proceeds with a client meeting to make his pitch. As part of that pitch, Pete holds up two magazines as evidence of the viability of the market, saying, “This is Ebony. This is Jet. For Negroes, by Negroes.”
The camera then cuts to a quick shot of Ebony and Jet covers, circa 1962. The client crudely rejects the notion of being seen as “a colored company”.
Cut. Print. And that’s a wrap. That was Ebony and Jet’s BIG TV MOMENT on the most critically acclaimed show on cable. About five minutes of set-up, then five seconds of name recognition.
Surprisingly, that short five seconds took weeks to negotiate.
Several months ago, reps from Mad Men contacted Ebony’s licensing chief, Lisa Butler, about permission. Along with that was the single page of the script with the EBONY and JET references. Lisa, in turn, contacted me to brainstorm on whether the usage reflected the brand’s goals and positioning – and as importantly, the historical accuracy of the exchange.
One thing all EBONY employees take pride in is the legacy of the company, and we knew that the scene in Mad Men was played out many times in real life. Except in real life 1962, the person pushing an advertising client to acknowledge the Negro market would have been the company’s founder, John Johnson, in an attempt to bypass the good old boys network of Madison Avenue media buyers. A junior ad exec in an all-white ad firm making such a pitch without significant participation from a Black publisher was not impossible, but not likely.
Butler went back to the Mad Men people with a proposal to take the brand mention to a new level. Don’t just mention the brands; create a strong John Johnson-type character who can represent the huge battle for acceptance that Black media fought in the ad world.
The makers of the show, who have been criticized by some for a lack of diversity, declined the suggestion. We tried and did not succeed. But it was great fun.
As a fan, I think it was a missed opportunity on the show’s part. But as a creative person, I applaud them for saying no. As a general rule, I think every suggestion made by a corporate type to a creative should be answered with a no, if only to close the door on such suggestions. Moreover, such a decision would have had a domino effect on casting, costs, script changes and more. To their credit, Mad Men has done a subtle but brilliant job this season of portraying the racism and sexism that permeated the industry in those days.
For the record, this kind of name-dropping is a common practice, to the point that an entire sub-industry has been created around the kinds of rights and permissions that go beyond just using getting the rights to use a photo or a piece of music for a soundtrack.
In TV and film, visuals tell half the story. When done well they can save a writer dozens of lines of dialogue and exposition. To that end, writers and actors alike, when developing characters, will often create elaborate and highly specific traits to give the portrayals more depth through visual cues that help advance the storyline or give audiences more insight. That might include everything from “collects black and white photography” to “likes golf and will only play with a certain brand of balls”. Those descriptions must be translated by art directors and prop coordinators who work closely with rights people to secure permission to display certain books, decorative items or works of art, or to use name brands in a particular way.
Most companies or artists find such mentions to be great publicity and grant permission freely. The artist Varnette Honeywood, as one prominent example, became well known as a result of her work being displayed over the mantel of the Huxtable fireplace in The Cosby Show. But in this litigious society, not everyone is so happy about his or her work being used for someone else’s storytelling.
Similarly, corporations can be highly protective of their brands. When I was at washingtonpost.com, we paid a company quite a bit of money to look through scripts that provided a way for the website to be mentioned. In an indictment of the lack of originality in Hollywood, nearly every script that came was exactly the same. Local newspaper reporter/protagonist finds some secret about the antagonist and needs to research information on a website to get more information. Sounds perfect, right? Except that every script also required said reporter to sleep with or otherwise fraternize with sources, so the Post management always (smartly) rejected the use of their brand name.
The price of not seeking permission can be costly, but the allure of Hollywood recognition has a way of smoothing out discrepancies.
I was part of a group that produced a popular photo book and exhibition some years ago. A colleague watching an episode of The Fresh Prince looked closely enough at the set to notice that his photograph was being used as a poster in the background. He pushed us to sue for copyright infringement. Before it got that far, however, we worked out an elegant compromise from the producers to work a mention of the book into the script. The result was cheesy, obvious and completely out of context, but we got more sales out of it.
Those kinds of deals shape scripts and background scenes all the time and the final results can be fascinating if you know the inside details.
It’s all a part of the sausage-making and corporate decisions that go into making your favorite TV programming. Not the kind of thing you want to hear if you still believe in the magic of television, but it’s reality. Meanwhile, I’m holding out hope for a strong Black character that will bring the complexity of the times to life. Maybe that will happen later in the season.
Related Stories:
In May, ad executive Mat Burnett looked at a classic Ebony And JET
campaign to convince advertisers about the viability of the Black consumer market.
Read it now: RETHINK: Fight the Power
Eric Easter is the VP of Digital and Entertainment for Johnson Publishing.
