I read Matt Weiner’s script for Mad Men before he filmed it. And because Matt is such a descriptive writer, I knew exactly what to expect when I saw the finished pilot: the smoke, the IBM typewriters — it was all there. I knew what Peggy would look like. I recognized Pete, Roger, and Midge. Matt had put it all on the page and realized it completely.
The only thing I couldn’t picture in my mind’s eye after reading that first script was Don Draper’s face — which was odd, considering the vivid writing and how well I knew advertising creative directors.
By then, I had worked in ad agencies for more than 25 years — and had worked with a lot of creative directors. (I’d done the job myself for the last ten years.) I knew how they walked, talked, swore, drank, and smoked, and how they could think brilliantly one minute and go off half-cocked the next. For years I’d seen creative directors sit back in their cushy corner offices and dismiss weeks’ worth of other people’s hard work with an impatient, “What else you got?”
I knew the slick, sharp character of Don Draper, a 1960s Madison Avenue creative director. His suit. His hair. The way he held a thick black China marker. But for the life of me, I could not see his face when I read the script.
In the first shot we see Don sitting alone in a bar writing his thoughts down on a cocktail napkin. The camera pushes in from behind, then comes around, and we look into Don’s face. Movie star handsome. Strong chin. A leader of men. And those eyes. That’s when I realized why I had been having trouble picturing Don’s face. I didn’t know it until I saw them, but in order to be a convincing creative director, to me, Don Draper’s eyes had to be a lot of things at the same time. Enthusiastic. Curious. Knowing. In the moment yet thinking about something else. Trustworthy, sincere, and a little scary.
Don Draper’s eyes were the key to believing this guy was sensitive enough to understand what makes people tick, smart enough to come up with good ideas, and shrewd enough to sell those ideas to clients. And there they were, and there he was. Perfect.
After AMC picked up the Mad Men pilot, Matt hired me to be an advertising consultant on the show. I spent the next seven years working with him and the show’s other writers thinking about what makes people good at the business of persuading. How do they think? How do they behave? What’s innate? What’s learned and passed from master to student? What’s physical and visible? What’s hidden and ethereal?
After thinking about all that stuff and working on Mad Men, I wrote a book. Because there are some things about the job of advertising, selling, and seducing strangers you can’t learn from books. But there are a lot of things you can.
Josh Weltman’s book Seducing Strangers: How to Get People to Buy What You’re Selling (The Little Black Book of Advertising Secrets) will be published by Workman Publishing Company, April 7, 2015.
