From ‘Mad Men,’ 4 lessons for clients

If you haven’t, you’ll need to go watch it immediately.

For the rest of you, let’s skip straight to the scene where Peggy is presenting an ad campaign for Heinz beans.

This is something that happens to us every day. A whopping 50 years later, working in the world of social media and websites, and it all comes back to this: Peggy tries to convince her client to use a new technology and imbue a little bit of humor into the advertising, and the client just doesn’t get it.

When she said, “It’s good to show your customers that you don’t take yourself too seriously,” (we’re paraphrasing) our jaws dropped to the floor.

On one hand, it’s good to know that we’re not alone (in the historical sense). On the other hand, it kind of makes us want to shake something (and not in the Zou Bisou Bisou sense). To the clients of the world, we implore you to do the following:

Be an early adopter.