Jag gets a free ride on ‘Mad Men’ plot twist
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Chrysler is the exclusive auto advertiser on “Mad Men,” but Jaguar is getting all the buzz, says David Pryor, Jaguar North America’s marketing chief.
The AMC network series is set in an advertising agency, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, in the 1960s. In recent episodes the agency pitched and won the Jaguar account.
Not all the references are positive. For example, there were swipes at Jaguar’s well known reliability problems of the 1960s. When one character tries to commit suicide by inhaling his XKE’s exhaust, he can’t get the car to start.
In another episode, the sleazy Jaguar dealer council chairman threatens that he’ll vote against the agency unless one of the female employees sleeps with him.
Pryor says that during and after the Sunday night show, “our search traffic doubles.” And he says the upscale 35- to-54-year-olds who watch the show are the folks Jaguar is targeting.
Jaguar hasn’t approached the show’s producers about advertising. “We didn’t give it a hard look because of the Chrysler deal,” says Pryor. But Jaguar expects to feature prominently in the story line now that the fictional ad agency has landed its first auto account.
“We will reach out to the producers now that we have such a major role, maybe to do fun things around the edges,” Pryor says.
Meanwhile, Jaguar is tweeting about “Mad Men,” posting comments and photos of 1960s ads on its Facebook page and generally “having a lot of fun.”
Says Pryor: “People are talking.”
